While international investors remain cautious, local players from CEE remain actively engaged, opportunistically monitoring the market, and taking advantage of reduced competition. Gábor Zeller, Senior Director, Capital Markets at iO Partners Hungary, talked to Property Forum about key investment trends and shared his market expectations for the rest of the year.

Demand for modern industrial space is still considerably high though European manufacturing companies are not taking home their production as quickly as earlier expected. Meanwhile, Asian firms in the automotive industry are increasingly seeking proper warehouses and logistics service providers. Property Forum asked Máté Szoboszlay, Director of Capital Deployment at Prologis Hungary about the change in e-commerce-related demand and the special needs of Asian tenants.

Facility managers of large sports centres face mounting energy and labour costs too. But those costs can be lower if the property itself is enabled to host different kinds of events. Developers should involve all parties to reach that goal before the construction or in case of remodelling the building. Tibor Lak, Finance Manager of Budapesti Sportcsarnok Üzemeltető Kft., a subsidiary of Granit Polus, which has been running Budapest Arena, a huge multifunctional centre in the Hungarian capital, spoke with Property Forum about how to handle this problem.

A key to a successful property development is a responsible real estate development strategy which also takes into account accessibility, self-sustainability and biodiversity. Zsolt Hintenberger MRICS, Managing Partner at Realiscon talked to Property Forum about the different aspects of ESG compliance, going deeper than the usual buzzwords.

A recent increase in supply is providing buyers with a broader selection of opportunities across CEE. Martin Ofner, Head of Market Analysis at Arnold Investments, shared with Property Forum his investment outlook for the CEE region.

Jacek Korwin-Małaszyński and Michał Korwin-Małaszyński, Members of the Board of APP Projekt, one of the leaders in construction engineering in Poland, have talked to Property Forum about the current situation on the property market, prices of the materials and the impact of the '2% Safe Credit' on the industry.

Leoš Anderle, CEO of Sekyra Group spoke to Property Forum about the residential projects of the Group not only in Prague but also in other cities, including abroad. He also shared what kind of buildings are the most complicated to build.

James Fife, CEO of LCP Properties Poland has talked to Property Forum about the company`s investment plans, the impact of the high interest rates and the entrance into the warehouse market.

Jiří Oslizlo, Chairman of the Board of Agrop Nova talked to Property Forum about the unique properties of wood and wooden constructions and how he would like to use his life experience from abroad to help reconfigure Czech thinking and ways of building. 

Offices might become hotels, hotels can be converted into apartment buildings and warehouses may serve as retail centres. But location, revenue-generating capacity and environmental considerations are the most important factors in converting successfully an existing commercial property, say experts of Hungarian developer Wing. Ernő Takács, Deputy CEO, responsible for hotels and retail at Wing and Chairman of the Association of Hungarian Property Developers and Gábor Angel, Deputy CEO, responsible for offices at Wing, talked to Property Forum about the challenges of changing the use of a property.