Adding up to €412M, the five biggest investment deals in the Irish market in Q3 accounted for 62% of the overall €665M spend, according to JLL research.

By far the biggest transaction of the quarter was the €161M sale of The Grange PRS scheme in Sandyford to Kennedy Wilson and AXA Investment Managers. The receivership sale included 274 residential units and an adjacent PRS development site.

That deal alone represented more than 24% of investment activity in the quarter.

JLL said the second-largest transaction involved an off-market office investment, which was acquired for €90M.

Next up was Hibernia REIT’s sale of New Century House in Dublin’s IFSC to Credit Suisse for €65.3M in July. Hibernia bought the 80K SF building in 2014 for €47M. It is fully let to Bank of Ireland for €2.9M a year.

Credit Suisse was also the buyer in the fourth-largest transaction — the €56M purchase of the Sharp Building on Hogan Place. The 45K SF office building was developed by McGarrell Reilly and is fully let to healthcare company Perrigo.

At €40M, the sale of Charlestown Shopping Centre — along with an adjoining development site with planning permission for 247 apartments — in Dublin 11 represented the fifth-largest sale of the quarter. The buyer has not been officially named, but is reported to be Panda Waste owner Eamon Watters.

The JLL figures indicate that 42 other transactions during the quarter added up to €253M, or 38% of spend.

While the €665M spent during the quarter was 30% lower than the amount traded in Q2, it is 25% higher than the same period in 2017.

JLL said sales to the end of September reached €2.6B and that its year-end forecast of €3B to €3.5B remains a sound estimate for the year. “Q4 is traditionally the most active quarter for investment volumes with an average of €1.3B traded in Q4 over the last four years,” the company said.

This year's investment activity has already surpassed that of 2017, when €2.3B worth of assets traded.