Literally and metaphorically, the music was playing at Europe’s largest property festival this year. In fact, at MIPIM’s parties such as the ones thrown by Tristan Capital and Legal & General, it went on well into the night.
A slew of agents’ deal-volume surveys out for MIPIM week showed how vigorously it played last year – Knight Frank’s, for example, had deals up 44.6% in the Netherlands, 89% in Ireland and 144% in Spain, while Savills logged a 36% jump overall to €200bn in Europe’s 15 largest markets. Though sadly there are no such statistics for the level of lending fuelling this wall of sound, we can be sure debt was helping to turn up the volume.