2018 ended with a significant premiere on the local real estate market: Romanian investors ranked second in the generated volumes by nationality. Almost €200 million were spent to buy commercial properties (about a quarter of the total volume), a significant leap of more than five times compared with 2017, according to Colliers International.

The largest privately owned hostel-chain in Europe a&o Group will open its first quarters in Budapest in 2019. The German group creates a modern hostel by simultaneously restoring and transforming a historic property into a 108-room hostel. ConvergenCE is to lead the complete reconstruction of the selected property in Csengery Street.

Panattoni Europe will increase the supply of warehouse space in Silesia, the key industrial hub of Central and Eastern Europe. The developer has just bought land for its new investment – Panattoni Park Czeladź III. The construction of the 68,000 sqm complex will commence this quarter, creating new jobs in the region.

Prologis has completed construction of two new speculative facilities totalling 25,300 square meters at Prologis Park Bratislava. The developments include 9,800 square meters in Building 14, of which 2,700 square meters are pre-leased to Electronic Star, an e-commerce retailer and 2,900 square meters to Blitshtein Trading, a food distributor serving major CEE markets, in addition to 15,500 square meters in Building 20.

CEE real estate developer Futureal Group announced the sale of its rental buildings portfolio in Kaiserslautern, Germany to a professional real estate investment firm listed in Switzerland. Proceeds from the deal will be reinvested in the Group’s portfolio of over 50 ongoing projects throughout Europe.

The expected reduction in construction activity in 2019 indicates the maturity of the traditional retail format market. New opportunities for owners and tenants come in the form of mixed-use projects and omni-channel retailing. JLL summarised the Polish retail market in 2018.

Mark Davis has been appointed the new EBRD Regional Director for Romania and Bulgaria and will assume his new role in Bucharest on 1 April 2019. Mr Davis follows Matteo Patrone who has become Managing Director for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

Stable rents and yields unscathed by increasing supply of office and industrial space – this is what Cushman & Wakefield Forton expects to see on the Bulgarian commercial property market in 2019, according to the company’s latest forecast.

2018 was an all-time record year for the real estate investment market in Poland with more than 100 transactions completed with a total volume of over €7.2 billion, reflecting an impressive nearly 45% growth year-on-year, according to Savills.

In early October 2018, Cushman & Wakefield was appointed a property manager for Proximo II, an office building in Warsaw. The owner of the complex is ČS nemovitostní fond, the largest open-ended Czech investment fund managed by REICO.