Asian e-commerce, defence and data centres redraw Germany's logistics map

Germany's logistics letting market delivered a strong first quarter in 2026 — stronger, in fact, than the broader economic picture might have suggested. That was the opening message from a recent webinar attended by REFIRE in which four logistics real estate specialists offered a candid and occasionally surprising assessment of where the market stands and where it is heading. The headline conclusion: the easy phase of rental growth is over, but the structural demand story remains firmly intact, driven increasingly by forces that barely existed two years ago.

Dr. Tobias Kassner, Head of Research at GARBE Industrial Real Estate, set the macro framework. Energy prices, geopolitical volatility, Iran-related supply chain disruption and renewed pressure on interest rates are all creating headwinds for occupier demand — while simultaneously generating new requirements on the other side of the ledger. Safety stocks, buffer warehousing, resilient supply chains, regionalised logistics networks: each successive shock reinforces the case for more, not less, logistics capacity. Construction costs, which had been expected to fall gently back towards 2020 levels by 2030, are now forecast to rise by a further 6% instead, compressing new supply and keeping the development pipeline tight.