Slovak developer Corwin has gained the final building permit for its Ljubljana office project Vilharia. Slovenia's large office complex, which will be built on the brownfield area, is now set to start construction at the beginning of 2023. It will bring 36,000 sqm of prime office space into the centre of the Slovenian capital.

Some developers forecast that sales prices will increase in the future purely as a result of the zero-emission requirements currently being placed on buildings but there is no consensus as to what the ultimate effect will be. Robert David, Partner and Tomáš Kren, Senior Associate at Wolf Theiss’ Prague office talked to Property Forum about the increasingly important role ESG compliance plays in real estate transactions and potential regulatory changes that can affect the market.

Union Investment has sold the Maraton office building in Poznań, to a subsidiary of UNIQA Real Estate, the real estate company of the Austrian insurance company UNIQA Insurance Group AG. The building has been held by open-ended real estate fund Unilmmo: Deutschland since 2017. The purchase price was not disclosed.

West4 Business Hub A, located in Wrocław is now certified WiredScore Platinum. Solida Capital, an investment and development company that entered the Polish Office market recently by acquiring West 4 Business Hub A from Echo Investment decided to upgrade this asset to the best digital and technological connectivity standard.

In 2022, the industrial market remained one of the fastest-growing real estate sectors in Poland despite supply chain disruptions that sent rents and construction costs rising. 2023 is shaping up to be a year of buzzwords such as nearshoring, reshoring and friendshoring, with the biggest challenges being cost optimization and looking for savings, says Jakub Kurek, Head of Industrial and Warehouse at Newmark Polska.

Taking into account the mood and current investment activity, it would seem that the recession in global markets is only just developing. A clear slowdown in real estate transactions has been visible since mid-2022. Several factors contributed to it, including the increase in interest rates, uncertainty related to the geopolitical situation, the war in Ukraine, games between the USA, Taiwan and China, as well as the instability of government and economy in Great Britain and economic problems in China, claims Michał Ćwikliński, Principal, Managing Director – Poland at Avison Young. 

Romanian developer One United Properties has purchased an unfinished, abandoned building in the historic centre of Bucharest, for €13.5 million. The building will be transformed into a 5-star lifestyle hotel - One Plaza Athénée.  

The Managing Director of JLL Czech Republic expects a fairly quiet year in 2023 in the investment market. But in the industrial market, next year should be a strong one due to continued steady demand, says Andrew Peirson in an interview with Property Forum.

Recent data from Arnold Investments show that around €152 billion was transacted on the EU real estate investment markets in the first three quarters of 2022. Year-on-year, this represents a decline of around 4% due to a strong first quarter. However, investment activity slowed down sharply in the course of the year. At roughly 39 billion, the transaction volume for the third quarter was around 39% lower than in the previous year. The main EU investment markets analyzed show a significant decline in transaction volumes both over the course of the year and in the third quarter.

According to the results of the survey conducted by Colliers among consumers from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, respondents indicated that they would spend less or the same amount of money on food and gifts (50% and 74%, respectively) when compared to the pre-pandemic year 2019. Thanks to high inflation, the money will not stretch quite as far as in previous years. The survey also showed an increased awareness of the problem of food waste - reducing the amount of groceries bought for this reason was declared by Hungarians (24%), Poles (18%) and Romanians (16%).