Around a month ago, MIPIM, the world’s leading international property fair, served as a useful vantage point for trends that have since been confirmed on the ground. Portugal made a strong impression, with retail parks once again taking centre stage alongside hospitality and logistics. The numbers support this optimism: investment in commercial real estate in Portugal exceeded €2.75 billion in 2025, representing 14% growth year-on-year. Looking ahead to 2026, the outlook points towards a recovery to circa €3 billion, provided market stability and investor confidence are sustained.
The Rise of Retail Parks in Portugal
Retail parks continued to generate strong investor appetite throughout the fair. A clear preference emerged for convenience-led formats with a grocery anchor and good road connectivity. The data backs this up: prime rents for retail parks reached €13.00/sq m/month at end-2025, against a backdrop in which Portugal recorded one of the strongest retail sales growth figures in Europe, up 5% year-on-year. This momentum is reflected in our own recent activity, most notably the transaction of Retail Park Matosinhos, a core asset combining scale, functional diversification and a strategic location, with further rental reversion potential. For many investors, this segment continues to represent an opportunity to pair stable income returns with relatively contained operational risk.
Beyond retail parks, two broader themes dominated conversations. The first was hospitality, where investor interest in hotels was clearly visible, underpinned by a healthy development pipeline across urban and leisure destinations and a widely held view that structural tourism demand remains robust. The fundamentals reinforce this confidence: in 2025, tourist accommodation in Portugal totalled 82.1 million overnight stays, up 2% year-on-year, generating total revenues of €7.15 billion, a 7% increase. The conversation went beyond day-to-day operations, encompassing the ability of hotels to deepen the local guest experience, benefit from repositioning strategies and integrate into more flexible use concepts, whether through more active management models or by capitalising on locations with a strong sense of place. Mid-scale hotels and boutique concepts also attracted growing interest from international players seeking the right combination of strategic location, product narrative and long-term value creation potential.
Logistics was among the most widely discussed sectors, with attention focused on strategic locations within the major metropolitan areas. The sector recorded take-up of approximately 485,000 sq m in 2025, with prime rents reaching €5.65/sq m/month on the Castanheira–Azambuja axis and €7.00/sq m/month in Lisbon, figures that reflect both the scarcity of quality stock and the mounting pressure from occupier demand. Prime yields held steady in the 5.25%–5.50% range. In terms of investment strategy, there was clear appetite for value-add opportunities, particularly in industrial and warehouse assets with scope for optimisation, repositioning or development, attracting both domestic and international operators looking to strengthen their foothold in Portugal. For some players with no existing presence in the country, logistics was precisely the sector where curiosity and appetite to explore future opportunities was greatest.
Alongside these three sectors, a number of cross-cutting themes were also in evidence at MIPIM. There was notable interest in alternative formats such as self-storage and more flexible industrial assets, as well as in private debt solutions. In parallel, growing attention was paid to specialist segments, including branded residences, build-to-rent and student housing, which together accounted for around 14% of total investment in 2025. The focus throughout was on strategies where value creation goes beyond yield compression, and is instead driven by how assets are conceived, repositioned and actively managed over time.
From a broader perspective, activity from Middle Eastern investors was notably quieter, largely reflecting the ongoing conflict in the region, while Portugal and Spain saw strong footfall. This reinforces the view that interest in the country is well-placed to grow in the near term, a view supported by the numbers, with prime yields compressing by a general 25 basis points over the course of 2025. Although available supply remains constrained and many investment decisions continue to be selective, the market today reflects a more mature and discerning approach, one in which Portugal is assessed not merely on pricing, but on the underlying fundamentals and the range of value creation opportunities across the commercial real estate spectrum.
April 2026