Sales of supermarkets and offices boosted commercial property investment in July to around £2bn, according to Colliers International.

Office investment volumes exceeded £1bn for the first time in four months. Sales included Hong Kong-based Link REIT’s £380m purchase of 25 Cabot Square, E14, from Hines, and Singaporean Sun Venture’s purchase of 1 New Oxford Street, WC1, for £174m.

Demand for supermarkets remained high, with Supermarket Income REIT acquiring a six-asset Waitrose portfolio for £74.1m and a 68,000 sq ft Tesco Extra on Newmarket’s Fordham Road for £61m, Colliers reported in its August Property Snapshot.

However, activity elsewhere remained depressed and the amount transacted overall in July was 60% below last year’s £5.6bn investment volume.

Oliver Kolodseike, deputy UK chief economist at Colliers International, warned that with investment volumes already down by 20% on last year’s levels the UK will struggle to hit £45bn by the year end.

“That said, if activity fails to pick up considerably, we could be down by much more than 20% by the end of the year,” he added.

John Knowles, head of national capital markets at Colliers International, added: “While the majority of the deals done in Q2 were started pre-Covid-19, we have seen a real rise in demand from investors over the summer in anticipation of more product coming to market in September. This is particularly true of good quality office stock, long-income opportunities, industrial, build-to-rent and social housing.”