Institutional investors are piling into housing across Europe, driving up house prices, according to new research.

The volume of purchases in Europe hit €64bn (£53bn) in 2020, with about €150bn of housing stock conservatively estimated to be in the hands of such large investors.

Berlin, with €40bn of housing assets in institutional portfolios, double the value found anywhere else in Europe, is at the top of the league table, followed by London, Amsterdam, Paris and Vienna, according to analysis of the Preqin private database of investors, funds and large transactions.

Private equity company Blackstone alone owns 65,000 residential units across five European countries.

The research was carried out by Daniela Gabor, professor of economics and macrofinance at the University of the West of England, and Sebastian Kohl at Berlin’s Free University.

According to Preqin data, more than 4,000 institutional investors, directed about $3.6tn of their $136tn assets to European real estate in August 2021. Of these, 1,325 investors held residential assets in their portfolios. The value of real estate portfolios that include housing was said to be about $2tn.