The Prague Research Forum announced the office market figures for the fourth quarter of 2015. Gross take-up amounted to 161,800 sq m, representing an increase of 78% compared to the previous quarter and the strongest quarterly result ever recorded on Prague office market. Also on a positive note, the vacancy rate decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 14.6% when compared to the previous quarter.

Investment into Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (excluding Russia) for 2015 reached a historic high level at over €9.6 billion, representing a 20% increase year on year. Czech Republic and Poland put in a particularly strong performance, recording investment volumes of EUR 2.7 billion and EUR4 billion respectively.

International investor and developer, CTP, has successfully concluded the purchase of a portfolio of industrial real estate in Hungary. With this acquisition, CTP further increases its footprint in Central Europe, with a TRA exceeding 3,250,000 sqm as of January 2016.

Prologis today announced that Ben Bannatyne has been appointed President of Prologis Europe, succeeding Philip Dunne, who has been in the role for almost seven years.

Which sectors make the most green field investments? Where does the automotive industry prefer factories to be built? What are the risks of such developments? Dr. Zoltán Nádasdy MRICS, head lawyer at Noerr’s Budapest office, answered these questions and more.

Which one is the most attractive capital in the region in terms of property investment and development? When will Budapest enter the phase of yield compression and how quickly are yields expected to drop? Which products spark the imagination of investors? These are some of the questions answered by the participants of the 11th Portfolio Property Investment Forum conference.

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.

A fear of rising vacancies caused by overdevelopment has long been in the centre of news regarding the Warsaw office market. Ewelina Kauzna MRICS, Director of the Office Agency, Landlord Representation at Colliers International in Poland talked to us about what is happening in the capital and in other Polish cities.

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.