In 2023, Central Europe’s commercial real estate market faced a notable decline in investment volumes. Dropping by 55% year on year, the region’s total investment volume accounted for €5.02 billion. Of the six countries surveyed by Cushman & Wakefield, Poland experienced the most significant downturn of 68%, with its share of the total CEE volume also dropping. The highest proportion of the capital went into the office sector, which also recorded the sharpest outward movement in terms of yields. Local and regional investors accounted for two-thirds of the investment transaction volumes, a significant increase from the previous years. Despite challenges, the market demonstrates resilience, particularly in the logistics and residential sectors, spotlighting areas of growth potential.

Experts of Cushman & Wakefield expect transactional activity on the Polish hotel market to pick up in 2024 as key performance indicators continue to improve and the pressure on investors to allocate capital builds up. Although 2023’s total investment volume on the Polish market was below that of 2019, it reached nearly €83 million - an 82% increase year-on-year. Warsaw, Vilnius and Edinburg are the only main European hotel markets that reported year-on-year growth in occupancy levels last year. At the same time, Warsaw came third for ADR growth (EUR) in 2023, with an increase of 20.1% year-on-year. 

Construction is underway for 7R's inaugural Green Saver product in Kąty Wrocławskie, Poland, aimed at reducing both CO2 emissions and operating costs. 7R Park Wrocław West II has just secured a total of PLN 87 million (€20.3 million) in financing from Bank Pekao S.A.

Industrial demand has shifted from logistics service providers to manufacturing companies. CBRE is reporting a year-on-year increase of 22 percentage points to a 53% share of total demand in the Czech Republic.

Higher borrowing costs and the price gap between buyers' and sellers' expectations are some of the reasons why transaction volumes are significantly below the 10-year average level of ca. €10 billion. This is according to a commercial real estate investment volumes survey by Colliers presented at a February meeting of Czech and Slovak investors and other financial experts.

Residential transactions in Bucharest fell by 17% in 2023 versus the previous year, while in neighbouring Ilfov County the volume of deals rose by 6% over smaller prices of homes, according to a iO Partners report.

IAD's Prvý realitný fond real estate fund has acquired through its real estate company Logis Rugvica d.o.o. a plot of land intended for development in the Sveta Helena area, near the Croatian capital Zagreb. With this project, Prvý realitný fond is successfully starting its activities on the Croatian market.

Romania’s retail stock is set to expand by around 90,000 sqm in 2024, of which more than half will be based in Pitești-based Argeș Mall. However, the development pipeline is strong for the 2025-2028 period, with a few large and dominant shopping centres expected to add several hundred thousands of leasable space to the local market, according to Colliers data.

CTP has expanded the Polish capital’s warehouse market by more than 67,000 sqm through the delivery of two new buildings at CTPark Warsaw South. This completion means the industrial and logistics complex in Mszczonów, near Warsaw, is now almost 90 per cent complete.

In 2023, on Poland’s largest eight regional office markets, developers delivered 280,000 sqm (-31% y/y). It’s bringing the sector’s total stock to 6.68 million sqm (+4% y/y). The new supply slightly increased the vacancy rate, stabilizing around 17.5% (+2.2 pp. y/y) at the end of December 2023. The largest concentration of tenant activity was observed in the largest regional office markets, i.e., Kraków, Wrocław, and the Tricity (about 70% of gross demand), where, in total, companies leased about 520,000 sqm out of 750,000 sqm of all signed contracts in 2023, says Axi Immo.