According to Jones Lang LaSalle, the transaction volume for direct investments into Germany retail properties increased by +75% to €1.054bn in Q 3 2009, compared to total volumes of €603m in Q2 2009.

Nearly half of the total revenue of €2.21bn transacted in Germany in the first nine months of 2009 was completed in the third quarter.

Shopping centres and high street retail properties remain the most favoured product amongst investors in the German market. With more than €785m transacted in the first three quarters of 2009, this represented one third of the total investment volumes in that period.

Around 30% of the transaction volumes were accounted for by high street retail properties with about €660m completed in the first three quarters of the year. Investors are attracted to the stable cash flows offered by high street leases. Within this asset category, Berlin was the clear market leader with a transaction volume of almost €150m during the first three quarters of the year, followed by Mannheim and Mainz with volumes of about €65m and €58m respectively and then Hannover and Munich with €38m and €34m respectively.

Investment volumes for retail warehousing properties such as retail parks, retail warehousing solus units and supermarkets/discounters totalled €580m during the first three quarters of the year, equivalent to 26% of the total retail volumes transacted in this period. Following a considerably strong first quarter, transactions in retail warehousing solus units slowed in quarters two and three and €72m was transacted in the first three quarters of 2009, accounting for just 3.3 % of the total volume.

After a strong first half of the year, sales of department stores decreased in Q3. Transactional activity in this asset category totalled €185m by the end of September 2009 which is equivalent to some 8.5 % of the total transaction