In the first nine months of 2026, investment in German retail property fell by 25%, to €3.1 billion (BNP Paribas Real Estate), and the share of foreign buyers dropped from 50% to 31%. There were more deals, but they were smaller: the average volume, €16.6 million, is a record low. Food stores and large-format specialist stores remain the main segment: in 2025, when the market grew by 2.6% to €6.5 billion, they took almost half of the investment.
Volume fell by a quarter in the first nine months of 2026
Exhibit 1. The share of foreign buyers fell by almost 20 percentage points, the share of portfolios by more than half
Source: BNP Paribas Real Estate, retail investment market reports for Germany, Q4 2025 and Q3 2026.
The year started strongly — about €1.37 billion in Q1 — but in Q2 and Q3 volume fell short of €1 billion: €892 million and €829 million.
Foreign capital has retreated from retail specifically, not from Germany as a whole. Across the commercial property market, €17.1 billion was invested in nine months (−2.1%), and the share of foreign buyers there rose from 44.3% to 48.9%. Retail's share of commercial property investment fell to 18%, although in 2025, at 26%, it was the largest asset class.
Food and large-format stores remain the main segment
Exhibit 2. Food and large-format stores took 48% of investment in 2025 and 45% in the first nine months of 2026
Source: BNP Paribas Real Estate, as above; totals may differ from 100% because of rounding.
In 2025 this segment grew by 52.5%, to €3.1 billion. About €1.0 billion went into food-anchored retail parks, €1.1 billion (+32%) into supermarkets and discounters and about €0.9 billion into non-food stores, mainly through XXXLutz's purchase of the Porta group. In the first nine months of 2026 the segment accounted for 45% of volume and 57% of all deals.
In 2025 the segment's buyers were above all foreign and institutional investors. Foreign buyers provided 51.0% of its volume, against 18.6% a year earlier. Institutional investors provided well over half of the capital invested in food-retail property (see Part 4 of the series German Prime Retail).
The largest deals are food-store portfolios
Exhibit 3. The largest portfolio of 2026, 37 properties for about €200 million, went not to a fund but to an EDEKA group company
Sources: BNP Paribas Real Estate, Grocery-Investmentmarkt Deutschland, Q4 2025, and retail market reports for 2026; Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Retail Investment, Q2 2026 (Powerfood).
Food-store portfolios brought in about €1.1 billion in 2025 across 24 deals, with an average volume of €45 million. In BNP's assessment, the shortage of large portfolios was a matter of supply, not demand. The broker views Q4 2026 with cautious optimism: many food-store deals are in preparation, and prime yields may rise further by the end of the year.
Implications for investors
1. Compare a property with its own segment, not with retail as a whole. While the whole market shrank by 25% in the first nine months of 2026, food and large-format stores took 45% of volume and 57% of all deals.
2. Expect retailers themselves to compete for food properties. An EDEKA group company bought the largest portfolio of 2026, and in BNP's assessment the shortage of large portfolios was a matter of supply, not demand.
3. Use the latest quarter's yield benchmark. BNP considers it possible that prime yields will rise further by the end of 2026, even though many food-store deals are in preparation.
What to check:
• Distinguish all retail from food: the €6.5 billion covers every type of retail property, while food properties in the narrow sense accounted for about €2.1 billion in 2025.
• Stick to one source: CBRE and Cushman & Wakefield use different methods, so do not mix brokers in one series.
• Compare like periods: nine months with nine months, not with a full year.
• Draw no conclusions from the foreign share: it swings sharply — from 18.6% to 51.0% within a year in the food segment — and says nothing about the price of a particular store.
See also: Commercial property yields in Germany in 2026; Price and yield: a table of multiples; German food retail in figures: 2026.
Sources: BNP Paribas Real Estate, Retail-Investmentmarkt Deutschland, Q4 2025, Q2 and Q3 2026; Investmentmarkt Deutschland, Q3 2026; Grocery-Investmentmarkt Deutschland, Q4 2024 and Q4 2025; BNP Paribas Real Estate press release of 9 January 2026; Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Einzelhandel Investment Deutschland, Q2 2026. Data as at October 2026.
Photo: Didier Weemaels / Unsplash
This page is general information and not investment, legal or tax advice.