Below we reproduce the opinion article signed by Antonio Fernández Hernando, President of ArmanexT, published in the February issue of Inmobiliario Mes a Mes. The publication coincides with the release of our 10th SOCIMI Study 2025, where we analyze the sector’s evolution and outline the key trends and forecasts for 2026.
Blockchain and Internationalization: What 2026 Will Look Like for the SOCIMI Sector
Opinion piece by Antonio Fernández Hernando, President of ArmanexT.
The sector closed the year with a market capitalization exceeding €31 billion, representing growth of close to 19% year-on-year, according to data from the 10th SOCIMI Study prepared by ArmanexT. By year-end, 159 SOCIMIs were listed across different markets. However, beyond volume, what truly matters is how this growth has taken place and what it signals for the sector’s behavior in 2026.
For years, the dominant narrative around SOCIMIs focused on expansion: more vehicles, more listings, greater capitalization. That lens is now insufficient to explain the sector’s evolution. In 2025, 21 new incorporations were recorded — significantly fewer than the previous year — yet the value of the assets incorporated reached €2.052 billion. Nearly 40% of that volume corresponded to a single transaction: the listing of Student Property Income, with assets valued at €780 million. The message is clear: fewer transactions, but larger in scale, more sophisticated, and clearly institutional in logic.
This same pattern is even more evident in corporate operations. The year closed with 10 market migrations, concentrating more than €2.6 billion in assets. These movements are not isolated events but reflect the natural maturity of many SOCIMIs established between 2016 and 2019. Investments made eight to ten years ago have met — or exceeded — their original return targets. At that point, the debate shifts from growth to rotation.
The case of LAR España illustrates this paradigm shift. Following a takeover bid that concentrated capital, its migration to BME Scaleup reflected a coherent economic decision: adapting the listing venue to a new shareholder structure, reducing regulatory complexity, and improving operational efficiency. This is not an exception. It anticipates what we are likely to see more frequently in 2026: more strategic decisions and a much more deliberate use of listing markets.
This dynamic should not be interpreted as model fatigue. On the contrary. When real estate rotates, it does so through sales, mergers, corporate reorganizations, or orderly liquidations. From a financial perspective, this demonstrates that the SOCIMI regime works: it allows returns to be crystallized, capital to be returned, and investment to be recycled into new vehicles. The ability to close the cycle is as important as the ability to open it.
The broader real estate context reinforces this reading. In 2025, real estate investment in Spain exceeded €17 billion, one of the strongest historical records. Outlook for 2026 points to continued elevated levels, though with a different capital composition. Growth will stem less from volume increases and more from strategic reallocation. In 2025, living and hotel assets accounted for approximately 37% of total investment, with living capturing around 22%. This share is likely to remain stable — or even expand — shifting capital away from traditional office assets toward formats with structural demand.
The housing shortage explains much of this trend. Estimates place the accumulated supply deficit between 100,000 and 700,000 units, depending on the scenario considered. In 2025, average rental prices reached €14.7 per square meter per month, with year-on-year increases above 8%. For 2026, several firms project additional increases of around 7% in residential property prices. This structural imbalance is not cyclical, and it positions professional rental housing as a central pillar of the real estate market.
For SOCIMIs, living, flex living, and affordable housing under public-private partnership schemes are not trends — they are financial responses to a persistent economic challenge. In 2026, such structures will move from exceptional to recurrent, particularly in major urban areas. SOCIMIs are well positioned to play a relevant role, thanks to their access to financing, market discipline, and professional management capabilities.
Another defining feature of the new cycle is asset reconversion. In the first half of 2025 alone, more than 20 change-of-use transactions were identified, involving over 137,000 square meters, mainly converted into living and hotel projects. In 2026, value creation will increasingly stem from acquiring, transforming, and repositioning assets, leveraging use arbitrage in consolidated urban environments. This approach requires more sophisticated managers and an industrial vision of real estate that not all platforms are prepared to assume.
Technology and Internationalization
In parallel, technology is beginning to play a more tangible role. By late 2025, Spain authorized Securitize as a multilateral trading facility based on blockchain technology. Its impact in 2026 will not be disruptive, but it will be relevant. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) reduces issuance costs, improves registration and settlement processes, and enhances ownership traceability. Adoption will be gradual and complementary to traditional markets — a lever for efficiency rather than a model rupture.
Internationalization is another increasingly significant vector. The arrival of Latin American FIBRAs — particularly from Mexico, Peru, and Brazil — into European markets introduces a new competitive dimension. These structures combine higher yields with European governance standards and access to euro-denominated capital. In 2026, we will begin to see these vehicles integrate more visibly into the European ecosystem.
All of this unfolds within a context of regulatory stability. The absence of major changes in SOCIMI regulation reduces regulatory risk and reinforces capital confidence. In a fragmented political environment, such predictability becomes an asset in itself — even if it delays necessary reforms.
Taken together, 2026 does not shape up as a year of exuberance, but one of financial architecture. Quality of operations will matter more than quantity; capital rotation more than asset accumulation; sophistication more than accelerated growth. The SOCIMI model is not exhausted — it is evolving. And those platforms that understand the logic of the cycle — not merely its narrative — will define the next chapter of listed real estate in Europe.
Below we reproduce the opinion article signed by Antonio Fernández Hernando, President of ArmanexT, published in the February issue of Inmobiliario Mes a Mes. The publication coincides with the release of our 10th SOCIMI Study 2025, where we analyze the sector’s evolution and outline the key trends and forecasts for 2026.
Blockchain and Internationalization: What 2026 Will Look Like for the SOCIMI Sector
Opinion piece by Antonio Fernández Hernando, President of ArmanexT.
The sector closed the year with a market capitalization exceeding €31 billion, representing growth of close to 19% year-on-year, according to data from the 10th SOCIMI Study prepared by ArmanexT. By year-end, 159 SOCIMIs were listed across different markets. However, beyond volume, what truly matters is how this growth has taken place and what it signals for the sector’s behavior in 2026.
For years, the dominant narrative around SOCIMIs focused on expansion: more vehicles, more listings, greater capitalization. That lens is now insufficient to explain the sector’s evolution. In 2025, 21 new incorporations were recorded — significantly fewer than the previous year — yet the value of the assets incorporated reached €2.052 billion. Nearly 40% of that volume corresponded to a single transaction: the listing of Student Property Income, with assets valued at €780 million. The message is clear: fewer transactions, but larger in scale, more sophisticated, and clearly institutional in logic.
This same pattern is even more evident in corporate operations. The year closed with 10 market migrations, concentrating more than €2.6 billion in assets. These movements are not isolated events but reflect the natural maturity of many SOCIMIs established between 2016 and 2019. Investments made eight to ten years ago have met — or exceeded — their original return targets. At that point, the debate shifts from growth to rotation.
The case of LAR España illustrates this paradigm shift. Following a takeover bid that concentrated capital, its migration to BME Scaleup reflected a coherent economic decision: adapting the listing venue to a new shareholder structure, reducing regulatory complexity, and improving operational efficiency. This is not an exception. It anticipates what we are likely to see more frequently in 2026: more strategic decisions and a much more deliberate use of listing markets.
This dynamic should not be interpreted as model fatigue. On the contrary. When real estate rotates, it does so through sales, mergers, corporate reorganizations, or orderly liquidations. From a financial perspective, this demonstrates that the SOCIMI regime works: it allows returns to be crystallized, capital to be returned, and investment to be recycled into new vehicles. The ability to close the cycle is as important as the ability to open it.
The broader real estate context reinforces this reading. In 2025, real estate investment in Spain exceeded €17 billion, one of the strongest historical records. Outlook for 2026 points to continued elevated levels, though with a different capital composition. Growth will stem less from volume increases and more from strategic reallocation. In 2025, living and hotel assets accounted for approximately 37% of total investment, with living capturing around 22%. This share is likely to remain stable — or even expand — shifting capital away from traditional office assets toward formats with structural demand.
The housing shortage explains much of this trend. Estimates place the accumulated supply deficit between 100,000 and 700,000 units, depending on the scenario considered. In 2025, average rental prices reached €14.7 per square meter per month, with year-on-year increases above 8%. For 2026, several firms project additional increases of around 7% in residential property prices. This structural imbalance is not cyclical, and it positions professional rental housing as a central pillar of the real estate market.
For SOCIMIs, living, flex living, and affordable housing under public-private partnership schemes are not trends — they are financial responses to a persistent economic challenge. In 2026, such structures will move from exceptional to recurrent, particularly in major urban areas. SOCIMIs are well positioned to play a relevant role, thanks to their access to financing, market discipline, and professional management capabilities.
Another defining feature of the new cycle is asset reconversion. In the first half of 2025 alone, more than 20 change-of-use transactions were identified, involving over 137,000 square meters, mainly converted into living and hotel projects. In 2026, value creation will increasingly stem from acquiring, transforming, and repositioning assets, leveraging use arbitrage in consolidated urban environments. This approach requires more sophisticated managers and an industrial vision of real estate that not all platforms are prepared to assume.
Technology and Internationalization
In parallel, technology is beginning to play a more tangible role. By late 2025, Spain authorized Securitize as a multilateral trading facility based on blockchain technology. Its impact in 2026 will not be disruptive, but it will be relevant. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) reduces issuance costs, improves registration and settlement processes, and enhances ownership traceability. Adoption will be gradual and complementary to traditional markets — a lever for efficiency rather than a model rupture.
Internationalization is another increasingly significant vector. The arrival of Latin American FIBRAs — particularly from Mexico, Peru, and Brazil — into European markets introduces a new competitive dimension. These structures combine higher yields with European governance standards and access to euro-denominated capital. In 2026, we will begin to see these vehicles integrate more visibly into the European ecosystem.
All of this unfolds within a context of regulatory stability. The absence of major changes in SOCIMI regulation reduces regulatory risk and reinforces capital confidence. In a fragmented political environment, such predictability becomes an asset in itself — even if it delays necessary reforms.
Taken together, 2026 does not shape up as a year of exuberance, but one of financial architecture. Quality of operations will matter more than quantity; capital rotation more than asset accumulation; sophistication more than accelerated growth. The SOCIMI model is not exhausted — it is evolving. And those platforms that understand the logic of the cycle — not merely its narrative — will define the next chapter of listed real estate in Europe.
