‘We started the year with a major, luxury retail deal in Maximilianstrasse in Munich – family offices are buying back into that market,’ he said. ‘We’ve recently inked a couple of residential deals with larger volumes, and offices are trading.’

Koch pointed out that a range of capital sources were ‘coming back to the table, including family offices, open-ended funds, and classic institutional money’ which he said was a good sign for the industry’s future. ‘We are at the beginning of a new cycle,’ he said.

In terms of alternative asset classes, Koch said that the firm continued to push towards renewables. ‘We have klimaVest, our €1.4 bn fund which is purely invested in this asset class. We strongly believe in tackling climate change and energy transition.’

However, he added that there had been ongoing frustration at Commerz Real around the way these kinds of assets are viewed by the German government. ‘We’ve been pushing very hard to change the legislation so that real estate open-ended funds can buy renewables. The new law has not happened so far, so we need to be patient, we are waiting for that.’

Furthermore, Koch said he was ‘quite concerned’ about the outlook for Germany.

‘We see various challenges in the steel, chemical and car industries - all strong pillars of the German economy,’ he said. ‘Companies are thinking about taking part of their production to other markets. These industries need energy at reasonable prices, but energy is still a key issue. It feels difficult to deliver that and push the German economy in the right direction.’

He added that he was ‘expecting a slightly negative growth environment this year’, which he described as ‘simply not good’.

He concluded: ‘Germany was always a safe haven in Europe for real estate investors, but I doubt that this is still valid. Investors rightly have question marks about how safe and how strong Germany is. It’s a tough environment.’