Report | Intelligent Investment
European Lender Intentions Survey 2025
June 12, 2025 3 Minute Read
Executive Summary
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CBRE’s 2025 European Lender Intentions Survey presents an overview of the commercial real estate lending landscape in Europe, highlighting lenders’ expectations, preferred sectors, and key lending terms. The report also analyses underwriting intentions and the growing importance of sustainability across the market.
Figure 1: Are lenders expecting to increase their activity in 2025 relative to 2024?
Key Findings
- Despite geopolitical uncertainty, lender sentiment is considerably stronger than last year. Refinancing is expected to be the main source of lending activity, as 2025 is an important year for loan maturities.
- Lenders are open to financing alternative sectors, particularly within Living, including senior housing, co-living, and subsidised housing. There is also growing interest in emerging sectors like cold storage.
- Loan-to-Value ratios remained largely stable year-over-year, but margins have compressed across all sectors. Non-bank lenders offer slightly higher margins but typically offset this with more flexibility.
- Many lenders expect to maintain similar underwriting criteria to last year, but some lenders are prepared to adopt more aggressive criteria in 2025. Most lenders seek to hedge a higher proportion of their senior loans primarily through Caps and Swaps.
- More than 70% of lenders will not lend against assets that do not meet sustainability criteria or that do not have a business plan to improve them, and nearly one-third would offer margin step-downs for sustainable assets.
Figure 2: In which ways will sustainability criteria impact lending?
Survey Criteria
CBRE’s 2025 Lender Intentions survey was conducted between 24 March and 25 April, gathering insights from 143 Europe-based respondents with diverse profiles. The survey window spanned the period immediately before and after the U.S. announced reciprocal tariffs on 2 April and a 90-day pause on them shortly thereafter.
