LONDON—France has the best-performing European real estate sector year-to-date, according to a Standard & Poors analysis of SNL's European real estate indexes, with the country's index achieving a total return of 7% as of April 26. SNL Financial is a subsidiary of S&P.

Paris

This news might be surprising to some market watchers, since the French commercial property market is currently in the grip of high vacancy rates and sluggish rental value growth. According to the IPD France Annual Property Index, released by MSCI in March, French commercial property returned 9% in the 2015 full year. But while capital growth was strong, income return was lacking, at 4.9% for all sectors and 5.1% for offices — the lowest level that the index has ever recorded, S&P says.

The UK was the worst performer in Europe in terms of total return year-to-date, according to SNL data. Shares in UK property companies got off to a rocky start in 2016, although many property watchers feel that they have been unfairly dragged down by wider negative sentiment among investors about the health of the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 at the beginning of the year, S&P noted.