The construction works of Etele Plaza has begun next to the Kelenföld railway station at the western gate of Budapest. As Futureal Group’s latest commercial development, the shopping and entertainment centre with a gross building area of 155,000 square meters will be the biggest of its kind on the Buda side of the city. The mall, combining unique architectural solutions and digital services will feature more fashion brands in one place than any other shopping centre in Hungary.

Automation and digitisation penetrating all spheres of life also have a material impact on the economy. Experts of Cushman & Wakefield have identified five key factors that will shape the retail and warehouse market growth going forward.

Panattoni Europe has announced investments worth €1.2 billion in city logistics projects – facilities built within city limits dedicated to the so-called “last mile”. Already today in Poland, four such parks are under development, totalling €65 million in value, and the most recent development – City Logistics Warsaw has already secured its first tenant. It is Frisco.pl – the online supermarket. In the space of 3 years, the developer will systematically pursue successive markets, including Germany, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic.

Cromwell Property Group, has entered into a strategic partnership with Linkcity, member of Bouygues Construction, a global construction company, to invest in the rollout of a portfolio of logistics and light industrial assets in Central and Eastern Europe.

JLL has secured €11 million to refinance the Lascar 31 Business Center Bucharest on behalf of the manager of the project, ForeVest Capital Partners. Intesa Sanpaolo Bank Romania provided the loan for the property, which comprises 9,250 square meters rentable area.

Colliers International has carried out research into retail units in the Warsaw’s office buildings. The study covered approximately 300 buildings and a survey was carried out on a sample of 200 employees. Colliers experts asked respondents about their expectations about the quality of the retail and service units in their workplace and what they have available at present.

The Polish office market closed Q1 2018 with sound demand, a drop in vacancy rates and 1.8 million sqm of office space under construction. JLL summarised the situation on the Polish office market in Q1 2018.

In recent years student housing has emerged as a highly attractive investment product on European markets. With the number of international students set to grow further and supply still limited, the future of this asset class seems bright. Stefan Kolibar, Head of Marketing at StudentMarketing talked about recent market developments.

Market players still look positively toward the future of Central and Eastern European property markets but they are visibly less buoyant than they were during most of 2017. Results for Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary are the most positive, while in Romania the picture is rather mixed. All data points to the Czech investment market being in a state close to peaking.

Belgrade’s real estate market continues to grow cautiously. Prime yields currently stand at 8.50% for offices, 8.00% for shopping centres and 9.75% for industrial assets, according to JLL’s Belgrade City Report for Q1 2018.