As students are preparing to resume their university studies in person, asking rents in large cities have gone up by up to 10% by the end of August 2022 compared to the same period of last year, according to property platform Imobiliare.ro.

UK-based commercial property fund manager and investor First Property Group concluded the sale of Tureni Logistic Warehouse, with a total area of about 8,300 sqm, in a deal brokered by real estate consultancy company Colliers.

As of summer 2022, leasing activity in the Kyiv office market was near a standstill and primarily driven by office optimization, as well as lease renewals and renegotiations of existing leases, according to the latest research of CBRE Ukraine. Whereas, as of the beginning of June, we observed a slight recovery in the level of office occupancy by employees who continued to work or who returned to Kyiv. Thus, typical office attendance among corporate occupiers was ca. 10% with many tenants in IT, high tech & telecommunications, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, agriculture, FMCG and industrial sectors planning to increase occupancy to 15%.

Czech construction company HSF System completed the construction of the second part of the retail park H-Park 2 in Brno as the general contractor. The investor was RLRE Carina Property. The financial volume of the project was approximately CZK 70 million (€2.8 million).

The warehouse sector in Poland remains in good shape after the first half of 2022. The market continues to see high tenant activity (3.7 million sqm; +12% y/y), generated mainly by e-commerce, retail chains, and logistics companies. At the end of June this year, developers delivered another 1.8 million sqm (+64% y/y), with the market still facing a shortage of vacant space. The high absorption rate is influencing decisions to start new investments. The result of 5.6 million sqm (+56% y/y) of projects currently under construction is the highest value recorded in the history of the entire sector. AXI IMMO summarizes the first half of the year in the warehouse market in the report "Polish Warehouse Market in H1 2022."

Dimitris Raptis, Globalworth Group CEO, spoke to Property Forum about the investments made to secure a smooth return of employees to the company’s office buildings and the importance of sustainability and market-leading certifications in a hybrid work ecosystem.

In the first half of the year, investors were as eager to locate capital in Central and Eastern Europe as in Western real estate markets. However, global economic changes and the uncertainty they bring mean that investment decisions are now more and more often withheld. According to Walter Herz advisers, the annual results may not be as good as the six-month results.

Bufab Hungary Kft, a subsidiary of Swedish-based Bufab Group leased nearly 2,000 sqm of warehouse and office space in LogiCube Park in Biatorbágy, near Budapest. 

Following a change to its investment model, the ORPEA Group, an entity specializing in long-term care and rehabilitation, has decided to restructure its project portfolio in the largest Polish cities, which were built for its planned expansion. Savills has been instructed to search for investors.

Romanian company Eden Capital Development has started the development of the second phase of the Cortina North residential project in Bucharest that will include close to 1,000 apartments, with the first deliveries expected in the second half of 2023.