Romanian developer One United Properties has purchased a land plot of 36,869 sqm in northern Bucharest in a deal worth around €60 million. The company plans to develop a new residential complex with around 900 apartments.

The Czech industrial market has set new records in Q2 2022. The total stock has reached 10.1 million sqm while net demand totalled 530,500 sqm. In Q2 2022, the largest lease agreement in the history of the Industrial Research Forum was also signed.

The gross take-up in the Prague office market has increased by 41% in Q2 2022 compared to Q2 2021. The volume of office construction also increased y-o-y by 47%. Leasing activity was driven by IT companies and the rent gap between newly completed and existing buildings continues to widen, says the office market report for Q2 2022 published by The Prague Research Forum.

The Green Point office building in Prague's Smíchov district will expand the assets of WOOD & Company's Office subfund. The eight-storey building has 7.5 thousand sqm of lettable office space available and at the moment half of it is already occupied. The amount of the acquisition from Ronaldsay B.V. was not published by WOOD & Company.

The rise of e-commerce and changing customer preferences have created a new phenomenon: Dark Stores; that is, online retailers delivering goods within 15 minutes of ordering. During the pandemic and the closure of brick-and-mortar stores, e-commerce reached its peak. Some e-shops saw their sales grow by several tens of percents last year. In connection with this, demand for smaller, centrally located e-shop locations and warehouses with 150 to 500 sqm of space began to grow, especially in larger cities with sufficiently dense housing.

Bogdan Doicescu, Development Director & Executive Board Member at Bog’Art, spoke to Property Forum about the cost forecast for the construction market in 2022 and the company’s plans to diversify their activity with their own residential developments in Bucharest.

The lowest vacancy was registered in North Buda with a 4.4% rate, whereas the highest rate remained in the Periphery submarket (31.4%). Net absorption has remained positive by the end of the second quarter, amounting to 33,720 sqm, Budapest Research Forum (BRF) reports.

Penta Group has expanded its real estate portfolio in the centre of Prague by another building. In an e-auction, Penta was the only bidder to acquire the former post office building at Masaryk railway station in Hybernská Street for a bid price of CZK 220 million. Now the contract will be signed and the price will be paid. Both parties to the transaction have confirmed it to the Czech Press Agency.

In the first half of 2022, office take-up in Warsaw hit a record high of 479,400 sqm, representing a year-on-year increase of 94%. Savills forecasts that the growing undersupply of office space will drive rental growth going forward, further accelerated by shrinking availability and significant increases in construction costs and office property management fees.

Panattoni has marked its debut in Asian markets with the opening of its first operational headquarters in India located in Bengaluru, the capital and largest city in the southwest state of Karnataka. Panattoni India is led by Managing Director, Sandeep Chanda, formerly head of strategy & acquisitions at Embassy Industrial Parks.