As FDI becomes increasingly concentrated in infrastructure-intensive sectors, corporate location decisions are becoming an important signal for real estate and institutional investors.

W. P. Carey's Head of European Investments, Christopher Mertlitz, has shared his assessment of market conditions following Expo Real 2026, pointing to cautious but active sentiment among participants and rising interest in alternative financing structures.

Yareal Polska has begun upgrading Żupnicza Street between Bliska and Chodakowska Streets in Warsaw's Praga-Południe district, as part of a developer-funded programme to modernise three streets surrounding its SOHO by Yareal mixed-use development in the Kamionek neighbourhood. The works include new road surfacing, refurbished pavements, one-way cycle lanes on both sides of the street and additional greenery, complementing earlier works on Bliska Street that are nearing completion.

The foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in Romania's real estate transactions sector reached approximately €22.1 billion at the end of 2025, accounting for 16.4% of the country's total FDI stock, up from 16% in 2024, according to data from the National Bank of Romania analysed by Cushman & Wakefield Echinox. This makes real estate transactions the second-largest sectoral destination for foreign capital, behind manufacturing, which attracted €35.7 billion and a 26.5% share. The construction sector separately recorded a stock of €1.82 billion after attracting net inflows of €74 million during the year.

CEE's strong economic growth, improving liquidity and increasingly sophisticated local capital base are strengthening the region's appeal to real estate investors. At the Poland & CEE conference session at Expo Real 2026, panellists highlighted Poland as the region's benchmark market while pointing to opportunities across the Baltics and wider CEE, with offices, living, logistics and alternative sectors all attracting capital.

Romania's apartment market showed signs of divergence in September 2026, according to the monthly PropGenius barometer. The national average price per sqm remained broadly flat, edging down from €1,973 to €1,972 per sqm, while time-on-market indicators rose across all seven cities analysed.

Investment manager RCM Group has published a market commentary arguing that Warsaw's office market is better positioned than French and German institutional office markets to weather a prolonged period of higher interest rates. The firm's analysis, authored by George Leslie and dated October 2026, rests on three structural drivers pushing rates higher: rising sovereign debt levels, increased defence spending in a more volatile geopolitical environment, and the capital demands of environmental adaptation and the AI-driven data centre build-out.

European real estate investors are navigating a market where higher financing costs and geopolitical uncertainty continue to weigh on sentiment, but improving liquidity, rental growth and renewed capital flows are creating opportunities across the risk spectrum. Speaking at the Real Estate Capital & Investment Decisions Forum 2026 in London, co-organised by Property Forum and RICS, investors discussed how strategies are shifting towards resilient income, active asset management and carefully selected value creation opportunities.

WING Group posted a 41% increase in consolidated revenue and a 23% rise in EBITDA in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier. Consolidated revenue reached HUF 130.3 billion, driven primarily by a higher volume of residential development handovers, while EBITDA rose to HUF 19.5 billion from HUF 15.9 billion. Total assets stood at HUF 1,358 billion at the end of June, with nearly 63% of the asset base located in Poland and Germany. Total loans and bond liabilities decreased by HUF 24 billion (3%) against year-end 2025, and financing costs fell by HUF 2.1 billion (10%) year on year.

Austrian investment firm Erste Asset Management has completed a cross-border merger with its Czech subsidiary REICO investiční společnost, effective 1 October 2026 following registration in the Austrian commercial register. The merger received regulatory approval from supervisory authorities in both Austria and the Czech Republic. REICO ceases to exist as a separate legal entity, with all assets, liabilities, rights and obligations transferring to Erste Asset Management.