Horațiu Florescu, Chairman & CEO of Knight Frank Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece & Serbia spoke to Property Forum about the emphasis on the hybrid concept in the local real estate market and Romania's ability to attract more institutional real estate investors.

Advance Tower, located on Budapest’s Váci Road office corridor, has become the latest office building to receive a WELL certification. With the International WELL Building Institute’s (IWBI) recent acknowledgement, two out of the three already WELL-certified office complexes in Hungary were developed by Futureal. Since 2020, Advance Tower has been part of Erste Open-Ended Euro Real Estate Investment Fund’s portfolio.

Transactions of apartments and houses began to decline starting from the spring of this year, as a result of high energy costs, rising construction materials and fuel prices, in addition to the rising costs associated with mortgages, according to real estate consultancy Colliers. 

According to Savills latest research, take-up in the European office market in H1 2022 reached 4.3 million sqm, 11% above the five-year H1 average.

Accolade Industrial Fund reported a crown appreciation of 4.23% in the second quarter of this year. For the entire first half of 2022, the fund achieved an appreciation of 5.45%. These figures were driven primarily by rental growth in the fund's portfolio of 1.2 million sqm of industrial property.  

Representatives from Panattoni and Media Expert, the owner of several hundred electronics stores in Poland, together with Hanna Zdanowska, the mayor of Łódź, on Friday - September 2nd - formally opened the latest section of the Media Expert logistics centre within the Central European Logistics Hub. Two buildings with an area of 160,000 sqm, one of which has just been handed over for use and the other to be completed within a year, have been connected to Media Expert’s pre-existing building to create a nationwide distribution complex. Together, the three buildings take up 232,000 sqm and are to provide employment for around 1,000 people. The total area leased by Media Expert from Panattoni across the Łódź region already comes to over 270 000 sqm with a further 35,000 sqm under construction.

Mark Richardson, Director, Head of Industrial and Investment Services at Colliers talked to Property Forum about the impact of the war in Ukraine on the CEE investment market, expected changes in the warehousing sector and the further development of PRS products in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Hungary’s high construction activity start in Q1 2022 was followed by a slowdown in Q2 2022. The EBI Construction Activity Report has found that between this April and June construction works started at a value of around HUF 800 billion. Although the value of projects entering construction decreased in Q2, these are not low numbers at all as Activity Start has been the 5th highest (on a quarterly basis) of recent years. It should be added, though, that recently construction costs have dramatically increased, massively pushing up the Activity Start indicator calculated at current prices, while at constant prices the volume would be lower.

What to invest in during times of uncertainty, war, rampant inflation and soaring interest rates? Avison Young presented its CEE commercial real estate investment market overview after the first half of 2022.

Domy Towarowe Wars Sawa Junior has welcomed adidas Warsaw - the largest store and the first adidas brand centre in Central and Eastern Europe. The brand also opened Sports Base Warsaw – the generally accessible space for fans of an active lifestyle in the store and at the downtown Pasaż Wiecha, where temporary sports installations have been created.