European real estate volume hits €171.9B as Q3 slips 4%

European real estate investment reached €51.5 billion in the third quarter, taking the nine-month total to €171.9 billion ($192.48 billion), 8% above the same period of 2025, according to CBRE data reported by IREI.

The third-quarter figure was 4% below the third quarter of 2025 and below the first half's roughly €60.2 billion quarterly average, CBRE data show.

Allocators building a pan-European real estate fund decide, through country and sector weights, whether fresh commitments go into markets where volume is expanding or into ones where it is shrinking. Living took 26% of the nine-month total and grew 15%; the UK grew 5% in the quarter. The quarter's 4% shortfall against 2025 is the pace a manager raising capital now has to underwrite against, CBRE data show.

The UK drew the most capital in the third quarter, €16.2 billion, 5% more than a year earlier and 22% above the €13.2 billion ($14.78 billion) transacted in the second quarter, CBRE data show. The Netherlands rose 8% year on year. France, Germany and Spain recorded declines.

Living took €45.3 billion ($50.72 billion) over the nine months, including €12.2 billion ($13.66 billion) in the third quarter, and ran 15% above the same period in 2025, CBRE data show. Within the sector, Spain grew 56%, ahead of the Netherlands at 53% and France at 19% — French living volumes rising while the country's overall total fell. BNP Paribas Asset Management's alternatives arm pitched European housing in September on the argument that German infrastructure spending would shift jobs and population and lift demand; CBRE's figures already put roughly a quarter of nine-month European volume into living.

Industrial and logistics drew €10.3 billion ($11.53 billion) in the third quarter and €29.7 billion ($33.26 billion) in the nine months, below living on both measures.