Poland’s commercial property investment volume surpassed €4 billion in the January-September period of 2020, down by 12.4% on the same period in 2019. Logistics accounted for nearly half of the investment activity while offices made up 38% of the transaction volume in Q1-Q3 2020, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

As part of a new climate strategy, one of the leading German asset managers is also targeting net-zero emission portfolio by 2050 – German investment manager KGAL has committed to becoming a climate-neutral company by the beginning of 2021 by offsetting all greenhouse gas emissions connected to its operations. Emissions calculated per employee will be reduced by 5% annually during the next 10 years. It has also pledged to have a net-zero emission investment portfolio by 2050. The targets are set out in the company’s newly announced climate strategy.

According to the latest Savills research, Prague’s office real estate market is fairly priced despite some minor outward prime yield movement during the first half of the year. This broader continent-wide outward yield movement has helped push the average yield spread between prime European offices and Eurozone government bonds to 325 basis points, more than 100 bps above the historic average.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the property investment market in Romania? What are the biggest challenges companies face these days? Is the wait and see period really over in Romania? Four experts tried to answer these questions and more at SEE Property Forum 2020, a hybrid event organised by Property Forum and RICS. We summarised the highlights of the discussion, moderated by Codrin Matei (Crosspoint Real Estate).

CEE Investment volumes for the Q1-Q3 2020 period have reached ca. €8.0 billion and are 12% down compared to the same period of 2019. Poland attracted €4 billion which represents 50% of all volumes in this period. Average transaction sizes are up 31.5% and the number of transactions is down 32% according to Colliers International. Despite investor appetite remaining strong for CEE, year-end volumes are likely to reach €10-11 billion, ca. 20% lower than in 2019.

The industrial/logistics asset class is presently the most attractive for a majority of banks in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) following the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to results from the latest edition of KPMG’s Property Lending Barometer (PLB), an annual study by the global audit and advisory firm that attempts to measure banks’ lending sentiments in Europe’s property markets. That preference lies in contrast to where most bank finance in Europe has typically landed prior to COVID: the office segment.

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.

It’s at last becoming possible to assess the consequences for Croatia’s construction sector of the country’s July 2020 elections. Jockeying for governmental positions, COVID-19- and tourism-season-related priorities and other pressing matters prevented the new Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) led government from moving on its larger agenda until recently. Now, though, the political picture, and the impact of the elections on Croatia’s construction sector, is getting clearer, according to a report by the Eastern European Construction Forecasting Association.

Data centres are becoming an important segment of commercial real estate and the COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be an impulse for its accelerated growth. There are currently 115 data centres in Poland, of which the highest number is located in Warsaw (35), Katowice and Kraków (13 each). Axi Immo anticipates the market to develop further, especially following the decision by IT giants Google and Microsoft to add Warsaw to their list of global cloud regions, with a pledged investment of $2 billion and $1 billion respectively over the coming years. Axi Immo experts have prepared a report on the Polish data centre market, its requirements and specific features.

There was a monumental €26 billion (£23.5 billion) investment into the European data centre sector for the first half of 2020, despite the impact of COVID-19, according to a report by Knight Frank in partnership with DC Byte. This is over four times the $5 billion annual average figure and a colossal increase on last year’s $2 billion investment volumes. Take-up in H1 2020 was also 50% higher year-on-year at 282MW.