Longer transaction times, greater interest in international real estate investments, and growing data volumes: Data room provider Drooms publishes its Real Estate Trends Report for the third year in a row and analyses the transactions processed via Drooms in terms of duration and volume. In 2024, 70 per cent of transactions were in the real estate sector, while the remaining 30 per cent were split between corporate finance, energy, and legal deals. In addition to the data analysis, Drooms interviewed 81 property experts about their investment intentions and market estimates for 2025.
One of the key findings of the report is that 54 per cent of respondents across all European markets have noticed an increase in transaction times in the last twelve months. 34 per cent even reported an increase of more than 20 per cent. In addition, 59 per cent of respondents plan to expand their international property investments in 2025, while 32 per cent want to maintain their investment level and 9 per cent want to reduce their transaction volume.
The anonymised analysis of the Drooms database confirms this trend: The average transaction duration reached a new high of 363 days in 2024 (previous year: 342 days). Germany is particularly affected with 405 days, while the United Kingdom recorded the highest figure among the major markets at 499 days. Conversely France (329 days) and Italy (319 days) have significantly shorter transaction durations.
The amount of data per property transaction also increased significantly in 2024 – by almost 20 per cent compared to the previous year. While an average of 3.0 gigabytes were processed per transaction in 2023, this figure had already risen to 3.6 gigabytes by 2024. The main reason for this development is the increasing ESG regulations and legal requirements.
According to the survey, the most attractive asset classes for 2025 are, in descending order, residential (44%), logistics (20%), infrastructure (e.g. data centres) (14%), hotel (10%), retail (5%), healthcare (4%) and office (3%). The biggest hurdle for cross-border property investments was cited by around 42% as differences in national regulation, followed by general access and knowledge of the local market (around 37%) and currency risks and exchange rates (around 7%). Internationalisation remains an important growth driver in the European real estate market. 59% of respondents plan to expand their cross-border investments in 2025 – a significant increase compared to 2024, when 51% stated an increased commitment.
“Modern data rooms, especially when utilising AI tools, significantly increase the efficiency of a deal. In 2025, we plan to significantly expand the functional scope of our data rooms in the area of artificial intelligence and thus the efficiency gains for our customers. This will simplify both the secure management of constantly growing data volumes in the course of ESG regulation and seamless collaboration with all stakeholders,” comments Alexandre Grellier, CEO of Drooms.