Would you have thought that many well know luxury brands have opened stores in Tirana before entering Budapest? This is especially interesting considering the fact that Hungary has a retail stock of 1.3 million square metres compared to 205 thousand square metres in Albania. Through our questions, Stela Dhami, Managing Partner at Colliers International Albania is introducing the property market of a country that is usually off the radar.

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.

The European industrial and logistics market experienced record levels of investment in Q2 2015 with the total volume reaching €6.1 billion, reports the latest analysis of CBRE. Investors are concentrating their capital on north Western Europe, and particular favour lies with the UK market which accounted for 40% of the total volume. Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Spain also reported strong quarterly figures.

Europe’s prime office market vacancy rate is expected to fall back to its 2009 level by the end of 2016 and then to continue declining over the rest of the decade, according to global real estate advisor, CBRE. In Europe’s major cities, office development is not keeping pace with growing demand driven by improving employment trends and almost all key office markets are expected to show falling vacancy rates and accelerated rental growth over the next five years.

Industrial real estate company Prologis has announced the signing of two lease extensions totalling more than 26,000 square metres and an 8,000-sqm area expansion in its parks in the Prague region.

Rents on the Budapest office market are set to rise according to Cushman & Wakefield, involved with leasing more space than any other agent in the market. The continued recovery is driven by sound economic, demand and supply fundamentals.

Leading global private investment firm Texas Pacific Group (TPG) has acquired a major part of Hungary’s most successful real estate developer TriGranit. The transaction affects the entire Polish and Slovakian portfolio of TriGranit, as well as some of its Hungarian and Croatian projects and TriGranit Platform. By ensuring additional funding TPG intends to create the largest real estate investment, development and management corporation of the region. Budapest’s West End City Centre and other TriGranit projects remain unaffected. The remaining part of the company will continue to exist and operate under the name Gránit Management.

Prologis, announced its results for the first half of 2015 in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). H1 saw over 900,000 square metres leased 97,000 square metres acquired, 97,500 square metres under construction and 130,000 square metres completed.

Investment into the commercial real estate (CRE) market totalled nearly €56 billion in the second quarter of 2015, up 15% on Q2 2014, according to the latest figures from global real estate advisor CBRE. Although the rate of year-on-year growth in investment activity has slowed slightly compared with Q1, it is still the highest Q2 total since 2007. Commercial real estate investment in Central and Eastern Europe slowed in H1 2015 due to a lack of available prime stock and the impact of rent contraction in Warsaw’s office market, the region’s most liquid market.

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.