Considerations on COM(2025)100 - Non-financial commercial real estate statistics

Please note

This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.

 
dossier COM(2025)100 - Non-financial commercial real estate statistics.
document COM(2025)100 EN
date March 11, 2025
 
(1) Statistics on developments in real estate markets are essential for economic and monetary policy making, for the monitoring of systemic risk and for guiding macroprudential policy making.

(2) The European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) identified data gaps regarding financial and non-financial statistics on the residential and commercial real estate markets in its Recommendation of 31 October 2016 ( 8 ). The data gaps hamper the mandate of the ESRB.

(3) While financial statistics on real estate markets are developed by the European Central Bank and the European System of Central Banks, non-financial statistics fall under the responsibility of the Commission (Eurostat) and of the European Statistical System.

(4) From a macro-prudential perspective, residential real estate concerns any immovable property intended or used for housing purposes, either existing or under construction, acquired or owned by a natural person. The Commission (Eurostat) already publishes statistics relating to the residential real estate. Harmonised house price indices are produced and published in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/792 and, every ten years, the results of the housing censuses are disseminated in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 ( 9 ). In addition, short-term business statistics on real estate are available in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2019/2152.

(5) In its Recommendation of 21 March 2019 ( 10 ), amending its Recommendation of 31 October 2016, the ESRB specifically called for Union legislation establishing a common minimum framework for the development, production and dissemination of a database on indicators regarding the physical commercial real estate market. Such development is needed to address the gap in non-financial commercial real estate statistics.

(6) In this same 2019 Recommendation, the ESRB defined the physical commercial real estate as any income-producing real estate, either existing or under development, including rental housing; or real estate used by the owners of the property for conducting their business, purpose or activity, either existing or under construction; that is not classified as residential real estate; and includes social housing. The definitions in this Regulation are aligned with those recommended by the ESRB in 2019.

(7) The Commission (Eurostat) and the national statistical institutes (NSIs), in close collaboration with the ESRB, assessed the feasibility of indicators on the physical commercial real estate, namely the price index, the rental index, the rental yield index, the vacancy rates and construction starts, recommended by the ESRB. The feasibility of producing the price index, the rental index, the construction starts and work completions was confirmed. Due to limited availability of data sources and insufficient quality, the indicators on rental yield indices and vacancy rates cannot be included in this Regulation and should continue to be developed. At the same time, an additional important indicator on the value of transactions of commercial real estate has been added.

(8) The NSIs, other national statistical authorities and the Commission (Eurostat) should have timely access, to data sources needed to compile the statistics under this Regulation. Relevant data sources for non-financial statistics on commercial real estate may be surveys, administrative records, transaction data or other sources, including a combination thereof.

(9) In order to improve the efficiency of the statistical production processes of the European Statistical System (ESS) and to reduce the statistical burden on respondents, Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European statistics ( 11 ) specifies a range of data sources to be used for statistical purposes. More specifically, the NSIs and other national statistical authorities should have the right to access, use and integrate, free of charge, those data and the relevant metadata, in a timely manner and with sufficient frequency and granularity for the purpose of developing, producing and disseminating European statistics on non-financial commercial real estate, in accordance with Article 17a of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2024/3018 12

(10) The NSIs and the Commission (Eurostat) should also be entitled to access and use new data sources, including privately held data, for statistical purposes, in accordance with Article 17b of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2024/3018. Upon request, a private data holder should make data and the relevant metadata available free of charge to NSIs or to the Commission (Eurostat) where the data requested are strictly necessary for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics on non-financial commercial real estate and cannot be obtained by other means or their reuse will result in a considerable reduction in the response burden on data holders and other businesses. 

(11) While maintaining the principle of providing statistics regarding the entire commercial real estate market, the data requirements should, to the extent possible, be simplified for the purpose of alleviating the burden on relatively small Member States, in accordance with the principle of proportionality. Additional requirements should not place a disproportionate administrative burden on respondents and NSIs.

(12) Inventories of sources and methods and quality reports are essential for assessing, improving and communicating the quality of European statistics. To that end, the European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) has endorsed the Single Integrated Metadata Structure (SIMS) ( 13 ) as the ESS standard for metadata and quality reporting, contributing to the fulfilment of the statistical quality requirements laid down in Article 12(1) of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 through common standards and harmonised methods. Article 12(1) of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 should therefore apply to non-financial commercial real estate statistics.

(13) Furthermore, Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/397 of 17 February 2023 on reference metadata and quality reports for the European Statistical System ( 14 ) calls on the Member States to ensure that their respective NSIs apply the statistical concepts listed in the latest version of SIMS approved by the ESSC, when compiling reference metadata and quality reports in the various statistical areas, and when exchanging reference metadata and quality reports in the ESS. Therefore, Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/397 should be observed, to the extent relevant, also in relation to non-financial commercial real estate statistics. 

(14) Where new data requirements or improvements to data sets covered by this Regulation are needed, pilot studies should be launched. Member States should be able to carry out those pilot studies on a voluntary basis while ensuring country representativeness at EU level.

(15) International standards, such as the Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX) initiative, and statistical or technical standards elaborated within the ESS should be used to the extent relevant also for non-financial commercial real estate statistics.

(16) In order to take account of economic and technical developments, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union should be delegated to the Commission, in order to amend the list of variables set out in Annex I. It is of particular importance that the Commission carries out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level, and that those consultations are conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making ( 15 ). In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States' experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts.

(17) In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation with regard to the details of the variables as well as the format, security and confidentiality measures and the procedure for the exchange of confidential data, the practical arrangements for the transmission, content of and deadlines for transmission of quality and metadata reports, the standards for data and metadata transmission, and derogations from the requirements of this Regulation or from the implementing acts adopted pursuant thereto, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council ( 16 ).

(18) Where the application of this Regulation or of implementing acts adopted pursuant thereto would require major adaptations to a national statistical system of a Member State, the Commission should, in duly justified cases, be able to grant derogations to the Member State concerned. Such derogations should be temporary and granted for a maximum duration of three years. The Commission should provide support to the Member States concerned in their efforts to carry out the required adaptations to their statistical systems, in order to bring the derogations to an end as soon as possible.

(19) Since the objective of this Regulation, namely the establishment of a common framework for non-financial statistics on commercial real estate, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather, for reasons of harmonisation and comparability, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.

(20) To ensure continuing consistency of all commercial real estate indicators, the indicator of the topic ‘real estate’ referred to in Annexes I and II to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 should be included in this Regulation. Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 should therefore be amended.

(21) The European Statistical System Committee has been consulted.