Absent foreign investors resulted in a high proportion of transactions in Swedish regional cities

Stockholm, 3 July 2020 – According to the latest transaction figures from Cushman & Wakefield, the pandemic outbreak and a lack of international buyers during the period affected both which regions and segments showing most transactions and largest volumes during Q2 2020. During the period mainly privately owned Swedish property companies have been the most active; as many as 97% of the sellers and 87% of the buyers were Swedish players. The figures also indicate that net buyers consisted primarily of privately owned real estate companies and that listed companies and the public sector were net sellers instead.

Annika Edström, Head of What's Next/Research på Cushman & Wakefield: “In our latest Property Investor Confidence index, which was conducted in the end of April, 63% of investors stated that they were actively looking at transaction deals and were ready to act on the same. Since then, more objects have reached the market and the financing situation has improved, giving a real ketchup effect. The uncertainty associated with Covid-19 places higher demands on and distinguishes attractive objects and capital-rich buyers more than before. "

The most popular segment overall in Q2 2020 was by far residential (47%), followed by office (31%) and industrial/logistics (8.5%). Transactions in the three metropolitan regions in Sweden jointly account for only 36% of the market and thus most transactions (64%) have taken place in regional cities or smaller cities. Traditionally, almost half of the transaction volume takes place in the three metropolitan regions (44% in 2019 and 52% in 2018). The trend during Q2 clearly shows that the geographical allocation has changed with the progress of the pandemic.