Prague's residential market is seeing record construction this year, with more housing starts, but demand for apartments is slowing down. On the other hand, however, the growth of housing prices is slowing and mortgage interest rates are rising. This is also why the share of vacant flats supply in the Prague residential market has increased too, says JLL's regular report.

The Prague office real estate market reached several records in the first nine months of 2022. It marked year-on-year records in the growth of new office space, record demand from tenants, and even much more office space was leased this year than a year earlier, according to JLL's regular quarterly analysis.     

There were only 8,326 residential transactions closed in Hungary in October 2022 which is the lowest figure for the month since 2012, brokerage firm Duna House reports.

Trei Real Estate and Jones Lang LaSalle Poland jointly published a new market report on retail parks and convenience centres in Poland. Here are the key findings: Within the retail sector as a whole, investors focus primarily on retail parks, convenience centres, DIY stores and food markets. Prime yields for high-end retail parks have maintained a stable level between 6.5 and 6.75%. The Polish retail investment market saw five banner years of very strong investment volumes between 2015 and 2019, each achieving a transaction total of €2.0 billion to 2.5 billion. The year-end volumes of 2020 and 2021 were significantly lower at c. €750 million and €1.0 billion, respectively. By contrast, investments in 2022 already stood at c. €760 million by mid-year. Accordingly, Trei and JLL Poland feel optimistic about 2022 as a whole.

According to Savills, development activity has cooled dramatically in the Warsaw office market. There is currently close to 230,000 sqm under construction, of which just over 115,000 sqm is scheduled for completion in 2023–2024.

Since the beginning of the year, five companies have decided to lease a total of 10,000 sqm of office space in Warsaw Spire C, which is almost half of the building. The majority of contracts are renewals of existing leases, two contracts were concluded as green leases. The occupancy rate in Warsaw Spire C is currently over 96%.

Inflation and the energy crises have not influenced the Czech industrial real estate market yet as the market broke two historical records in the period of Q3 2022. More than half a million sqm of new industrial space was completed and the vacancy rate fell below 1% for the first time in recorded history, says the newest JLL report.

Demand for logistics and industrial space is close to registering a new record in 2022 as the vacancy rate reached 4.3% at the end of Q3, which is one of the lowest levels in the last decade, according to real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield Echinox. 

Błażej Czwarnok and Marcin Muszel, Partners in the Real Estate Practice at Gide Loyrette Nouel spoke with Property Forum about the PRS market, economic turbulence caused by the war in Ukraine and legislative changes coming to the Polish real estate sector.

Pavăl Holding, the investment vehicle of the Pavăl family, has purchased first phase of the U•Center office project in the Tineretului area of Bucharest from Romanian developer Forte Partners for an undisclosed sum.