The beginning of the year was marked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine which caused various obstacles to the Slovak economy. It pushes inflation up to the highest in 17 years as also the prices of food, housing and energy. Nevertheless, the lifted lockdown measures helped boost retail sales and new office leases surpassed renegotiations for the sixth quarter in a row. Experts also saw a record quarter with substantial take-up and plunging vacancy rates, Cushman & Wakefield Slovakia presents in their new report on the Slovak economy.

The beginning of Q1 2022 has brought record numbers. €898 million was invested into Czech real estate assets in Q1 2022, demonstrating a 210% year-on-year increase. Without the c. €1.3 billion Residomo transaction which was closed in Q1 2020, this quarter's investment volume would be the highest since Q1 2019, Savills' latest research shows.

Geopolitical tensions hurt demand for commercial property, appetite for property development, financing conditions and property investment decisions over the short run, the Hungarian National Bank (MNB) reports.

The Central & Eastern European real estate market has registered an investment volume of €2.8 billion in Q1 2022, up 44% year-on-year. By volume, the lion’s share of the deals was realised in Poland (59%) and the Czech Republic (32%). Cushman & Wakefield has summed up the investment market in the CEE region.

Serbia’s construction market was booming when the economic and geopolitical situation changed, so the complicating circumstances in the world are stifling the potential growth and slowing down the ongoing recovery. Inflationary pressures have exploded with the start of the war in Ukraine and the effects of the current crisis are still unforeseeable, writes Dejan Krajinović from Beobuild Core d.o.o. for EECFA Serbia.

As the pandemic forced many of us to shift a work-from-home routine, some people predicted that “the office is a dead concept” and that it will never return. I would agree that the office as we knew it is actually really dead, but the “new office” is here and all of us need to adapt to it, writes Petr Florián, Associate Director, Office Leasing at Avison Young in the Czech Republic for Property Forum in an opinion piece.

Office Warsaw faces major challenges: deteriorating macroeconomic indicators, rising construction and utility costs, and upward pressure on rents and service charges. In addition, there are delays resulting from broken supply chains, the spectre of a supply gap and a strong reshuffling in the demand structure. On the other hand, the capital city market reports a quarterly record in lease agreements signed and attracts an IT giant that buys one of the newest office-mixed use complexes; all this is according to the summary of the first quarter in the Warsaw office market prepared by BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland experts.

The latest report from research firm Spectis indicates that following a strong start to the year, the outlook for the construction sector over the coming months of 2022 is now less bright. The expected slowdown can be indirectly caused by the ongoing war in Ukraine, which only aggravates the problems the market has been facing previously, such as soaring prices of raw materials, building materials, and energy sources or the shortage of labour.

For Croatia, as for other EECFA countries, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been both a supply shock and a demand shock. And many of the elements of these shocks are the same for Croatia as for other EECFA countries. On the supply side, energy costs are rising as are the costs of construction materials and of construction finance. Supply chains and labour markets have also been disrupted. On the demand side, inflation has cut into consumers’ real disposable income, consumer confidence has been shaken as a result and finance for real estate purchases has become more expensive, says Michael Glazer, SEE Regional Advisor at EECFA Croatia.

One of the most important factors for decision making in any business these days is understanding and complying with ESG standards. If a company wants to grow and be successful, it should follow the needs of customers and investors much more than ever before, said the experts of the ESG panel at Bratislava Property Forum 2022.