Savills: logistics investment soars in Czechia and Hungary
European logistics real estate investment volumes reached €38.2 billion in 2024, marking a 15% year-on-year increase, though still 15% below the five-year average, according to new research by Savills.
The strong performance of the sector was largely driven by a robust year-end, with €12 billion invested in Q4. However, the market cooled in Q1 2025, with logistics investment volumes falling to €7.5 billion—a 38% decline from Q4 2024 and 16% lower year-on-year.
Comparing Q1 2025 against Q1 2024, the largest increases in annual terms have been in the Czech Republic (+1358%), Hungary (+445%) and Ireland (+371%).
Of the core European logistics markets, the largest increases were in Italy (+95%), Spain (+81%) and Poland (+47%), according to the international real estate advisor. “In terms of location, Savills’ European Logistics census identified a shift towards core locations by investors. Germany (65%), France (56%) and Spain (54%) saw the strongest interest.”
“With the geopolitical environment remaining highly unstable, we would expect take-up to decline in Q2 with a potential V-shaped recovery by the end of the year”, said Andrew Blennerhassett, Associate Director, UK & EMEA Logistics Research, Savills. “The best historical example of a change in the status quo for global trade is Brexit. Looking back, take-up in the UK fell by 30% in 2017 post-referendum before recovering the following year, rising by 41%.”
After declining in 2024, average European industrial vacancy levels are starting to rebound, rising by 71bps in the first quarter, from 5.91% to 6.62%. This follows several quarters of deceleration in the vacancy rate growth.
“A notable trend in 2025 is the shift in investor preference from big-box, single-tenant assets to multi-let properties”, said Peter Kirk, Director, pan-European Logistics team, Savills. “Multi-let assets are increasingly attractive due to their ability to diversify tenant risk, offering greater resilience compared to single-tenant investments. We have also seen that debt has become cheaper and more accretive in the last few weeks.”
