Equity poised to buy Dutch assets but sellers hold out

The Netherlands market is still relatively quiet according to Rogier Bos, Head of Real Estate Finance Benelux, Berlin Hyp, although there is currently a lot of negotiation underway and there is equity ready to be invested.

“If you have a performing property, then you are not willing to sell this at the current value and that is, of course, holding back most of the sellers at the moment,” Bos told Real Asset Insight’s Richard Betts.

He pointed out that some investors might have to sell, however, in order to raise equity for refinancing or to acquire new assets.

“That is actually the trigger which everyone is currently waiting for,” he added.

One point of interest is that prime office rents are slowly rising owing to the demand for prime properties, nice places to work, locations which attract the right employees and those which are “Paris proof”.

“The same applies for unregulated resi,” he said. Residential rent regulation has eliminated most of the development pipeline in the Netherlands, which means that everything which is not regulated has become expensive.

“For society that’s actually a significant problem, but it does mean that there is some rent potential in unregulated rent.”  

The logistics sector has stabilised and current yields are more interesting than they have been.

“On retail we are very conscious of the risks. We are still following retail, we are financing some convenience shopping centres and some supermarkets and we’re happy with that.”

But it is necessary to be careful with everything that could be replaced by online shopping, he added.