Developers operating on the six largest Polish cities sold a total of 17,600 units in the fourth quarter of 2019, which is 9% more than in the previous quarter. This increased annual sales to 65,400 units, which is nearly 1% better than last year. It was also the second-best result in the history of the primary housing market in Poland, according to JLL’s report.

The Expoziției Area attracted almost 15% of the total demand for office spaces registered last year in Bucharest, thus entering the top 5 areas preferred by companies to locate their offices, at a very short distance from Center - West, the most dynamic area in the last 3-4 years, according to JLL:

Developer and operator SES Spar European Shopping Centers has announced that the customer opening of Slovenia’s most modern shopping centre, located in the northern district of Šiška in Ljubljana, is scheduled to take place on 19 March 2020.

Optima Investment Ltd., which manages the assets of the Central Bank of Hungary’s Pallas Athené Foundation, has sold the majority stake of its Budapest development project, located on the Váci Road office corridor, to internationally-based Chi Fu Investment Group.

Hungarian developer Infogroup has acquired the 33 ha Heliport Industrial Park in Kecskemét. The property offers nearly 40,000 square meters of industrial and logistics space, making this the largest acquisition in the company’s history. The transaction was made with the co-investment of the Kecskemét Development Fund.

During their New Year’s Reception held at the British Ambassador’s Residence in Bucharest, RICS announced the new Advisory Board for Romania, which will be responsible for implementing RICS’ strategic goals locally and will work closely with key stakeholders in Romania.

Sustainability is top of the agenda this year at Davos as governments and businesses around the world are grappling with ways to combat climate change. Of the four global issues the World Economic Forum has said “clearly stand out as urgent and important” at the annual meeting in Switzerland, the first two are how to address environmental challenges harming our ecology and economy, and figuring out how to transform industries to achieve more sustainable business models. The built environment has a huge role to play in developing and implementing solutions, with technology, investment and robust governance central to success, according to the City Momentum Index report from JLL.

KGAL, an independent investment and asset manager, has bought a second office building in Warsaw. The acquisition of the Prosta Office Centre (POC) from Cromwell Property Group follows the 2018 purchase of the Spark office complex. Both assets were acquired for a Europe-wide special real estate AIF.

Total demand on the Budapest office market in Q4 2019 reached 202,510 sqm, representing an 18% increase from the corresponding period in 2018, according to BRF’s latest figures. The vacancy rate has decreased to a record low of 5.6%, representing another 0.3 pps reduction quarter-on-quarter.

The volume of real estate investments in Romania exceeded €1 billion in 2019, totalling about €1.06 billion, 7% higher than the figure registered in 2018, according to CBRE Romania’s data. The volume reached in 2019 also marks a record of the last five years in terms of investment transactions on the Romanian real estate market.