Half of the employees who normally work in office buildings continued to work mainly from home even after the state of emergency was lifted, despite the fact that, during the summer, most companies began to bring back their employees partially or through rotation in the office spaces, as shown by a research study conducted by Cushman & Wakefield Echinox regarding the working methods of employees in Romania during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Partially due to the pandemic, demand for office space on Poland’s largest regional markets from January to September was 11% lower year-on-year. Many tenants are temporarily postponing expansion plans and relocation decisions, according to JLL’s summary.

AFI Europe Romania has inaugurated its AFI Brasov mixed-use project on 21 October. The project, located near the city’s historic centre, includes a modern shopping centre with 45,000 sqm GLA and 15,000 sqm GLA of office space rising above the retail floors.

CTP announced its expansion plans for the Transylvania area. The developer plans to double the leasable area of ​​logistics spaces in the Transylvania region until 2023 by investments of €50 million in the expansion of its two logistics parks around Timișoara. Some of the spaces included in the construction plan are already leased to companies from the logistics and manufacturing sectors.

In the third quarter of this year, residential developers operating in the six largest cities in Poland sold 13,300 units, which is 94% more than in the previous quarter. In most markets, these units were sold at higher asking prices than in the second quarter. Thanks to new launches, which returned to the level seen at the beginning of 2020 of 13,000 units, the offer remained stable, according to the latest JLL report on Poland’s residential market.

Tyre manufacturer Nexen Tire Europe is expanding its activities near Žatec. Besides its plant in the Triangle Strategic Industrial Zone, the company will lease from CTP an additional large warehouse at the neighbouring ctPark Žatec, from March 2021. The 12,000 m2 Central Distribution Warehouse will be constructed for supplying the whole European market with tyres manufactured by Nexen for passenger and commercial vehicles.

Due to the prolonged COVID-19 epidemic, some tenants on the Warsaw office market are postponing relocations, looking for sublessees or downsizing their offices. According to the Cresa Polska report "Occupier Economics: Office market in Warsaw in the third quarter of 2020", office take-up amounted to 113,000 sqm in Q3 2020, which is the weakest quarterly result in the last 10 years. Warsaw’s office stock reached 5.8 million sqm.

Experts of the international investors’ panel at SEE Property Forum 2020, a hybrid event organised by Property Forum and RICS, agreed that Romania’s property investment market has matured a lot in recent years but the lack of liquidity is still an issue. They also confirmed that COVID-19 makes it difficult to forecast the future direction of the market and it makes certain market players, especially banks, more cautious.

The impacts of COVID-19 are becoming visible on Prague’s office market with a rapid decrease of net demand and the postponement of several completions of new office projects. At the same time, the share of sublease deals within the total take-up increased from around 1% in previous quarters to 7%. The Prague Research Forum announced the office market figures for the third quarter of 2020.

Impact Developer & Contractor has started the works on the first 3 blocks of the Boreal Plus residential compound in the north of Constanța. The enterprise contract worth €9.5 million was concluded with the construction company Premium Invest Concept.