European real estate universe exceeds €2tn – INREV, EPRA

New joint research by INREV and EPRA reveals that the total European real estate investment universe has surpassed €2.0 tn.

Iryna Pylypchuk

Listed real estate grew from €199 bn in 2005 to approximately €971 bn in 2025, while the full non-listed market (including various fund types and direct holdings) expanded from around €219 bn to €1.03 tn in the same period, with equity funds accounting for roughly €519 bn.

Non-listed leverage fell from 38.9% in 2009 to 24.6% in 2025, while listed leverage dropped from 44.0% to 38.7%.

Retail properties show the highest leverage in both listed and non-listed sectors, while industrial/logistics (listed) and residential (non-listed) have the lowest. Country-level leverage also varies widely, with the UK having the lowest listed LTV (30%) compared to Germany (45%) in 2025, and similar disparities in non-listed markets (UK 5% vs. Germany 32.8%).

Both listed and non-listed sectors show common trends, including a sharp portfolio rotation away from retail and offices since 2012, with residential now the largest sector. Germany has also overtaken the UK as the largest market exposure.

Listed real estate offers liquid access to specialist operators and faster sector rotation, while non-listed funds provide diversified, slower-moving core exposure across multiple countries.

Iryna Pylypchuk, director of Research and Market Information at INREV, commented: “Listed and non-listed markets have evolved through successive property cycles. They are complementary instruments tuned to the same market, and an investor who draws on both commands a fuller, more representative European real estate universe than either can offer alone. What it adds up to is the opportunity for investors to gain more diversified and greater total exposure to the asset class, as part of a multi-asset portfolio.”

David Moreno, Indexes manager at EPRA, added: “Our research with INREV demonstrates that the listed and non-listed sectors are complementary routes into the same underlying universe of institutional-quality real estate in Europe and should not be regarded as separate asset classes. For investors, either one provides a certain portfolio exposure, while a combination of the two offers the broadest and most representative allocation to the opportunities available in European real estate.”