The Catalan ‘real estate’ sector opens 2022 with a slight slowdown in activity, but still on the crest of a wave. The real estate services consultant CBRE has published this Monday that the logistics market of the community has contracted 214,800 square meters in the first quarter of the year, a figure that represents a decrease of 4.6% in relation to that of the same period of 2022. Despite this setback, the The difference is minimal considering that in the first three months of last year, the surface reserved more than doubled that of 2020. In fact, these first figures of the year are still 122% higher than those of then.
“The first quarter of 2021 was exceptional due to the contracting of 140,000 square meters by an electronic commerce operator in the Far of l’Empordà (Girona)”, contextualizes the director of Industrial & Logistics of CBRE Barcelona, David Olive, it’s a statement. “This year’s figures continue to be very good and confirm the growing trend in terms of logistics contracting”, points out this manager.
In fact, the data between January and March 2022 represents a 12% increase in the square meters contracted in the first quarter of 2019, and continues to be one of the best volumes to date. For Oliva, the engine is still the e-commerce boom. Specifically, until March 2022, operations related to this sector have represented 30% of total contracting.
In this sense, among the main operations carried out in this period in Catalonia, the new Kave Home logistics complex in clumsiness (The Maresme), which will occupy 90,000 square meters, and the lease of a 20,200 square meter Prologis logistics warehouse in Sant Boi de Llobregat (Baix Llobregat).
The space available, in minimum
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Another proof that the interest in the sector is not diminishing is that the availability of space is at an all-time low: only 2.5% of the square meters built with the logistics sector in mind are free to occupy, a situation that CBRE relates again with high demand. The real estate consultant anticipates that this scenario will be reversed this year, since it anticipates that the Catalan market will add more than 850,000 square meters in new projects.
“In any case, the high demand and the decrease in the available supply of the logistics market have boosted the ‘prime’ rent in Catalonia by 7% to 7.5 euros per square meter per month,” adds the company. “CBRE estimates that this growth will continue in the coming months in the different logistics areas due to the lack of supply,” he concludes.