DIFI Report by ZEW and JLL Released: Subdued Projections Despite Positive Business Environment

The German Real Estate Finance Index (DIFI) by ZEW and JLL decreased by 1.7 points in the third quarter of 2017 to a current reading of -7.2 points. Despite a climb of 4.4 points to 9.8 points in the assessment of the current financing situation, the sentiment index for commercial real estate financing remains negative for the third quarter in a row. Once again the cause is the far worse assessment of the predicted financing situation for the next six months.

This result shows that the mood in the commercial real estate market remains fairly pessimistic. Despite the fact that, based on an assessment of the past six months, the business environment for commercial real estate financiers has remained stable at a high level and even shown slight improvement, when it comes to predictions for the next six months, pessimism is mounting in all four usage categories. The outlook appears particularly bleak for retail property financing. At -36.7 points, the indicator is close to its all-time low back in 2012. These are the key findings of the DIFI Report, a quarterly survey on the commercial real estate financing market in Germany carried out by ZEW in cooperation with JLL.