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More than €500m was spent buying Irish commercial property during the first three months of the year. This represents a 300pc increase on the €163m spent during the same period of last year, according to Stephen Aherne, associate director at property consultants TWM. About 40pc of the spend in the first quarter of this year was down to one deal when Californian newcomer Realty Income Reit acquired Oaktree’s portfolio of eight retail parks across Ireland for around €220m.
The eight have a combined floor area of more than 130,000 sq m and are Navan Retail Park, Naas Retail Park, Sligo Retail Park, Drogheda Retail Park, Bray Retail Park, Waterford Retail Park, Parkway Retail Park in Limerick and Gateway Shopping Park in Galway. It is understood to have a rent roll of about €17.5m so that the purchaser can expect to earn a net initial yield of about 7pc.
Property developer Johnny Ronan’s RGRE was also active, buying back some of his Dublin properties that had been in receivership for around €34m. They comprise: 78-79 Grafton Street, Dublin 2, which is let to Bewley’s Cafe and had been guided at €15m; 116 Grafton Street which is occupied by cosmetics retailer Lush which had been guiding at €2.9m; the PTSB branch building on Grafton Street which had guided at €11m; and part interests in two city-centre office buildings, Percy Exchange on the Grand Canal and St James House on Adelaide Road.
French investors continue to display interest in Irish opportunities as Principal Asset Management acquired two commercial buildings in Galway for €7.2m in its first acquisition in Ireland for LOG IN, the European logistics and industrial fund managed by Theoreim. The asset comprises Building 4, a prime life sciences investment at Parkmore West Business & Technology Park let to Medtronic Vascular Galway Unlimited Company.
All of the other deals during the first three months of the year related to smaller lots of less than €5m and many of those were purchased by private Irish investors. An example was The Park Clinic in Cabinteely, Co Dublin, which was let to Centric private healthcare and which sold for €1.8m.
Mr Ahearne said: “The strong performance in Q1 2025 compared to Q1 2024 is encouraging and indicative of the strong fundamentals of the economy.” Retail has maintained its performance from last year as the leading asset class by investment spend. “The office sector is expected to form a larger share of the market spend in the coming quarters due to the number of high-value office investments currently being marketed,” he said.
“Excluding the sale of Blanchardstown Shopping Centre last year, the last four quarters have shown consistent performance within the range of €500m to €650m. With several larger lot size sales currently underway, particularly in the office sector, we anticipate these figures to grow further.”.
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