In the second half of last year, gross take-up decreased in the two largest regional office markets of the Czech Republic. The Regional Research forum announced the Brno and Ostrava office market figures for H2 2018. 

Plaza Centers has signed a pre-agreement for the sale of a plot in Brasov, Romania for a total gross amount of €620,000 which is slightly above the last reported book value.

Cushman & Wakefield Echinox has strengthened its Capital Markets team by promoting Alexandru Mitrache as Head of Transactions - Land & Investment.

In 2018, Echo Investment signed lease agreements for a total office area of nearly 80,000 sqm. This year also seems to be busy - the company plans to start construction of approximately 100,000 sqm of offices including in Warsaw, Wrocław, Łódź and Kraków. Projects with a total area of 150,000 sqm are being prepared.

Last year’s demand for office space on Poland’s markets was 1.5 million sqm. 744,000 sqm of office space was delivered to market while a further 1.6 million sqm is under construction, according to JLL’s report.

KD Adriatic Value Fund, Special Investment Fund, the first regulated real estate alternative investment fund (AIF) in Slovenia, managed by KD Funds in partnership with Peakside Capital, has finalised the acquisition of the Austria Trend Hotel in Ljubljana. This transaction represents the fourth commercial real estate acquisition in Slovenia by the KD Adriatic Value Fund, with the first acquisition completed in April 2018.

Immofinanz has purchased the remaining 50% of the Na Příkopě 14 building in Prague from Lordship and become the sole owner. The revitalised historic prime high street building, located on the prestigious Prague shopping street in the city centre, is almost 100% occupied. The parties to this transaction have agreed not to disclose the purchase price.

2018 was a record-breaking year for the Polish commercial property investment market. The total volume of transactions completed in the office, retail, warehouse and logistics as well as hotel sectors came to nearly €7.3 billion, which represents a y-o-y growth of approx. 41%. This is a result not previously recorded on the Polish market, according to a report by BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland.

Cushman & Wakefield has mapped the office property market in detail and made a chart of the largest owners and the most active developers of office buildings in the main markets of the Czech Republic. At this point, there is 4.23 million sqm of office space in the Czech Republic. CPI Group is the biggest owner with 22 properties taking up 5% of the total area. The three biggest office owners in Prague control about 15% of the entire market. Penta Investments has been the most active developer over the course of the last ten years.

Globalworth Poland has taken further steps to manage its Polish real estate portfolio in-house. Between December and January, the company took on the property management of Lumen and Skylight in Warsaw, West Gate in Wrocław, the A4 Business Park in Katowice and Tryton Business House in Gdańsk. Since the company entered the market, Globalworth has gradually internalized the property management of a series of buildings and now handles directly 250,000 sqm in only about one year, which constitutes almost 60% of its portfolio in Poland.