Wilcox told PFE recently, "The UK has been very active in recent months, and we have been inundated with internationals wanting to come into the market from every country you can think of…However Paris will be in focus over the next 12 months, though pricing is nonetheless still an issue there." Among the enquiries for UK property have been some from potential investors based, for instance, in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and mainland China, some of whom have also expressed interest in other European markets."

He said the state of individual economies and occupier markets are fundamental to all investment decisions but capital is now beginning to flow in many directions. Savills has, for example, seen investment capital from Spain, in particular from high net worth individuals, seeking a home in other European markets. "On the buy side it is the Germans who have been dominantly active so far and therefore the key question is who is there if you take the Germans out of the equation," he says.

"There is a war of attrition on pricing across many European jurisdictions right now. As an agent the best we can do is know who the buyers are in the market, identify assets that we want to buy, that we think are logically going to be available, and patiently wait...Spain would clearly fall into that category. There's lots of equity out there but that equity cannot in reality be deployed unless there is debt to go with it. That debt can in theory be sought if it's on a low LTV. Then the challenge goes back to pricing and the gap between buyers and sellers."