Office buildings in Frankfurt: record in high-rise Monopoly

the recently completed Opera tower, moved eight years ago, the owner, and knocked it to the client, Tishman Speyer, around 550 million Euro in the cash register. Today, the Opera tower would cost almost twice as much, estimates Christian Lanfer, which is in the broker house JLL for the Frankfurt investment market. “But what the owners do with the money?”

Rainer Schulze

editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

F. A. Z.

Many of the investors are in a quandary. In the absence of other ways to invest in reliable, office buildings hot, sought-after investments. Particularly in large German cities, which will apply in the case of foreign investors as “safe havens”, such as Lanfer says. In this Situation you could make with the sale of a property a tidy profit. But where then?

Who rents the office buildings?

In the past year have been broken on the Frankfurt investment market all of the records. 10.2 billion Euro, as much money as never before, was spent in the commercial office real estate. The previous maximum value from the year 2007, as office buildings worth about eight billion euros changed hands, was clearly outbid. The most expensive towers in the high-rise Monopoly of goods in 2018, the not-yet-finished Omniturm of Tishman Speyer, a real estate investment Fund of Commerzbank EUR 700 million in value.

closely followed by the Trianon in the Bank’s district, which went for 670 million euros to a South Korean buyer. For the Euro tower insurance from Taiwan paid-in 530 million euros. The newly-renovated office tower is getting on in years. But for the buyer of the tenants that counts more than age. And in the Euro tower of the European banking supervision, which belongs to the European Central Bank is sitting still.

“a billion Euro in

JLL, and other broking houses,” were in the past year, 29 properties changed hands for more than a hundred million euros to the owner. Thanks to the good demand, the Frankfurt real estate market is now a seller’s market. Under the high system pressure, the yield fell to meanwhile, only 3.15 percent. Desperate the buyers, however, are not. “There was no question: We need to quickly bring a billion Euro and are uncomplicated,” says Lanfer, and grins. Against Overheating of the good market environment, speaks from his point of view. “It all just fits. We have a good rental situation and a stable economic situation. Who pays high prices, is not committing a Hara-Kiri.“

Because the rental market has been achieved in the past year, a more than solid result. 633 000 newly leased square meters in the previous year by eleven percent. But it was also located on a particularly high level. According to Markus Kullmann, head of office leasing at JLL, was 2018, the third-best rental year ever on the Frankfurt market.