This statistic shows the expected sources of debt funding for real estate investments (financing and refinancing) in Europe as of 2019. Debt financing takes place when the company strives to raise its working capital. In order to achieve that, it sells bonds, bills or notes to either institutional or individual investors. In that way investors become the creditors of the company and they can expect repayments of the debt plus interest. Debt investments are backed by a hard asset as collateral. Another way of raising capital is equity financing, in which case the company goes through the initial public offering of its stock on the stock exchange; in this case investments are based on the estimated future performance of the company. As survey data showed in 2019, approximately 55 percent of respondents, industry experts, expected a moderate increase in debt funding for real estate investments coming from alternative lending platforms at that time. Similarly, the same share of experts expected a moderate increase in debt financing from non-bank institutions.