Barbora Dermekova MRICS, Valuer at JLL became the first recipient of the Chris Bennett Memorial Prize. The award was handed out at the Portfolio Property Investment Forum conference in Budapest, where the activity of several big players of the Hungarian property market was also acknowledged.

More than 100 people attended Portfolio’s first property investment conference in London, co-organised by RICS. Speakers at the CEE Property Investment Briefing included Europe’s biggest investors. The exclusive half-day conference in London focused on CEE markets such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Poland.

European commercial real estate markets saw further yield contraction in Q3 2015 across all property sectors, reflecting growing investor demand and very low bond yields, according to the EMEA Prime Rents and Yields survey from global property advisor CBRE. Across the total of 162 sector/city combinations throughout the EMEA region, 71 saw prime yields moving lower and none saw any increase over the quarter.

The RICS Commercial Property Monitor for Q3 2015 showed that expectations for commercial property markets in Central and Eastern European countries have improved remarkably. Both, the Occupier Sentiment Index and the Investment Sentiment Index stands in positive territory across all sectors and projections for the future also paint a positive picture.

With the economic performance of countries in the region being better than expected, due to the general positive mood an increasing number of investors have been prompted to launch new projects, so much so that on a regional level, the expected expansion of the office market supply will exceed demand. The extent of new supply is expected to slow down the growth of rental fees, in fact, it may lead to their decrease in certain markets over the next three years. The Central European markets with the best performances will probably be Prague and Budapest.

Which regional country presents the best opportunities for developers currently? Which market can be the best choice for investors? Which countries have a more challenging road ahead of them? These are the questions that regional real estate professionals tried to answer for us ahead of our CEE Property Forum 2015 conference in Vienna.

The RICS Commercial Property Monitor for Q2 2015 showed that most countries in Central and Eastern Europe have good growth prospects and the expectations for commercial property markets have further improved. Both, the Occupier Sentiment Index and the Investment Sentiment Index stands in positive territory in all four examined countries.

According to the RICS Commercial Property Monitor for Q1 2015 most countries in Central and Eastern Europe can expect relatively strong economic growth and the expectations for commercial property markets are also broadly positive. The Occupier Sentiment Index has finally registered a positive value in all four examined countries. The Investment Sentiment Index is firmly in positive territory for both the Czech Republic and Hungary, but is also not in negative territory in Bulgaria and Romania.