LONDON-Yields from prime commercial real estate in Europe, Middle East and Africa continued to slide in the third quarter, falling by up to 11 basis points across office, retail and industrial property. This represented a slightly larger fall than in the second quarter, when prime rents held roughly stable on average across all markets, said CB Richard Ellis officials.

CBRE's Richard Holberton says that while prime rents in many markets have now stabilized, there is an absence of widespread upward momentum. “This is one of the factors now tempering the downward movement of yields," he says. Holberton also emphasized the importance of investors pausing over the summer to assess the impact of government austerity measures.

Prime office rents increased slightly during Q3, with CBRE's office rent index for the EU-15 area up by 0.2% from the second quarter and 0.9% from Q3 2009. Nine of the 55 locations in the survey saw increases in prime rent, seven fell and 39 remained unchanged. The largest increase in Europe was in Warsaw where rents climbed by 8.7% to $423 per square meter. The largest fall was in Madrid - down 3.6% to $457 per square meter.