International Lenders And Investors Finally Unfreeze Dublin's Debt Market
The good times may not quite be back in the Irish capital, but lenders are starting to put significant amounts of money to work in Dublin. And that can only help the investment market.
Real estate investment in Dublin in the first quarter totalled almost €547M, a marked improvement on Q1 last year, when just €162M was recorded, although still 30% below the long-term Q1 average of nearly €785M.
With interest rates now at a much more competitive underlying rate for real estate investors and several financing and refinancing deals already inked, Dublin’s debt market has finally started to thaw, and the hope is that pulls more investors off the sidelines.
“The opening quarter of 2025 saw a step change in activity in the Irish investment market, with a range of assets coming to market for sale across sectors and grades of buildings,” CBRE Ireland Research Director Colin Richardson said.
Stable valuations, continued cuts to interest rates and pent-up demand after two years of relative inactivity have all acted as catalysts, he said.
“There has also been an uplift in financing activity for existing portfolios and development,” he added. “Some large-ticket deals have closed in Q1 across sectors. Residential continues to be a favoured sector for lenders, but both equity and debt deals for developing Dublin industrial and logistics and offices have also closed.”
In one of the latest and largest deals, Standard Chartered acted as sole underwriter, mandated lead arranger and hedging bank for a €238M financing facility with M&G and Marlet Property Group for their College Square development. The refinancing follows Workday’s decision to lease the whole of College Square’s office space in Europe's largest single European office leasing transaction since 2021.
It qualifies as a “green loan,” as College Square has achieved LEED Platinum and is targeting WiredScore Platinum and A3 building energy ratings.
Richardson said institutional investment groups are attracted by the risk-return profile of debt in the current market, given that banks remain cautious on lending, particularly for commercial assets.
Aberdeen Investments chose Dublin for its first European commercial real estate loan with the €33M financing of an unnamed Grade A office property. It is the initial step in its planned expansion of its platform to support European borrowers, and the company said it will focus on the Irish and Dutch markets initially as it widens its financing business.
“Ireland is a key target market for us, alongside a number of other European markets,” Aberdeen Head of Commercial Real Estate Lending Martin Barnewell said. “Ireland has demonstrated strong economic growth in recent years, and while we remain cautious around the potential impact of tariffs on the economy, we think it presents solid and attractive fundamentals from a lending perspective.
“The legal and regulatory framework is broadly similar to the UK, which gives lenders a solid platform to deploy, and the real estate market has repriced, which offers an attractive entry point, particularly for senior debt. Spreads are wider than the UK and other, more tightly priced European markets, which means that Ireland can offer lenders an attractive risk-adjusted return for the right deals.”
Hibernia also raised an undisclosed sum for the development of Harcourt Square, according to CBRE. Harcourt Square will be Hibernia’s second cluster, delivering circa 346K SF of office space across 10 floors and two interconnecting buildings in early 2026, with KPMG as its major occupier.
But debt and development financing have not been the sole preserve of the office market, with residential and logistics also attracting refinancing deals.
In March, Iput Real Estate launched its €230M Iput Nexus Logistics Fund to develop the first 1.5M SF of Nexus Logistics Park near Dublin Airport. Iput raised €115M from two new investors, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and a European institutional investor via CBRE Investment Management’s Indirect Private Real Estate Strategies, to develop the first phase of Nexus. The remaining €115M is being invested by Iput.
And in the residential market, Kennedy Wilson and AXA IM Alts completed the refinancing of $510M of maturing debt secured against five apartment assets in Dublin and Cork, which form part of their 50-50 Irish joint venture established in 2018.
The five-year facility was secured from Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank following a process run by Eastdil Secured. The assets include Clancy Quay, Sandford Lodge, the Alliance and Grange East in Dublin, as well as the Elysian in Cork, comprising a total of 1,689 units, representing almost half of the JV’s portfolio of 3,500 rental units in the city.
“This refinancing process satisfied a large 2025 maturity for Kennedy Wilson and generated extremely strong market interest,” Kennedy Wilson Europe President Mike Pegler said of the deal. “We secured competitive terms from a diverse pool of over 30 potential lenders, including both local and international banks, insurers and debt funds.”
In addition, Irish Residential Properties REIT has refinanced its €500M revolving credit facility in a deal that left its annual interest rate at 3.8%, unchanged from 2024, and increased its flexibility to borrow more under an accordion facility that has increased to €200M from €100M. The facilities have a five-year term, with the option of two one-year extensions, and were provided by Bank of Ireland, Barclays, Allied Irish Banks and ABN Amro.
