CBRE sees continuing strong demand from investors in the Czech Republic across the core sectors of office, retail and industrial with an increased demand for more specialist sectors such as hotels and residential. The retail sector in Q1 clearly dominated with more than €900 million transacted, followed by the office sector with a 20% share of total market volume.
The total investment volume in Q1 2017 amounted to €1.41 billion in 23 transactions and stood more than €980 million above the 10-year Q1 average. Q1 2017 was, after Q4 2016, the second strongest quarter in terms of investment volume in history. This means that on a rolling 12 month basis, we have seen €4.7 billion invested into the Czech market, making it the most successful period on record.
The Q1 figures were boosted significantly by three €200+ million transactions – Letnany shopping centre in Prague, Olympia shopping centre in Brno and CPI’s purchase of a major cross border predominantly retail portfolio.
Local investors were the most active with a 37% share of the market in Q1, followed by German investors who accounted for a 33% share.
Despite current political uncertainty in Europe and the US, CBRE forecasts that the current market will continue to run for a further 18 months, with investors keeping a close eye on the rate of global interest rate rises.
