What will be the most well-performing investment products of the coming period? How does political risk factor into investment decisions? How many years of growth do we have left in the current cycle? These are some of the questions that members of the investment panel at CEE Property Forum 2018 answered.

Real estate professionals surveyed by the RICS in Q2 2018 now believe that the Czech investment market has reached the peak of the current cycle while the Hungarian and Polish markets are also close to peaking. Nevertheless, market sentiment is still positive on both the occupier and investment market in all CEE countries monitored by the RICS Commercial Property Monitor, including Croatia and Romania.

Given the dynamic changes occurring within organizations and the evolving business environment, the old office models are no longer working. At the same time, the market, which has in recent years experienced a strong increase in supply on the one hand, and a significant transformation of the labour market, e.g. evolution of work styles, on the other one, is more and more willing to welcome new workplace strategies.

Globalworth released its interim report and unaudited consolidated financial results for H1 2018. The company continued to expand heavily in its core markets, Poland and Romania.

About 10 years ago, Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy would mark the peak of the global financial crisis and would be followed by a deep recession in several parts of the world, including Romania. However, Romania has come a long way in the last decade, with the economy seeing some radical transformations, as well as in real estate; the real estate consultancy company Colliers International Romania sees the next 10 years offering an attractive risk/reward profile.

The overall European logistics yield dropped 14bps to 5.95% in Q2 2018, the first time it has fallen below 6% since Cushman & Wakefield began consistently tracking the three main property sectors in 1992, according to the firm’s DNA of Real Estate report.

How do you incorporate the creation of an office into your business strategy as to support the growth of the organization and those that form it? Karolina Dudek from the Office Agency department at BNP Paribas Real Estate and Szymon Boniecki and Bartosz Rega from Monterail provide answers in a market report to be published in September.

Bucharest’s Floreasca/Barbu Vacarescu area is the most valuable fusion between retail and office spaces. According to Colliers International Romania, for every 1,000 sqm of offices, there is 35-40 sqm of retail space. In total, in the Floreasca/Barbu Vacarescu area, there is about 10,000 sqm of such spaces at the ground floor of the office buildings, with the rents generated by these holding a share of 4-5% of the total cashed in by landlords.

Investment volume on the Romanian market in the first half of 2018 amounted to approximately €386 million, down 27% from the same period of the previous year, when the investment market reached a value of €530 million, according to Cushman & Wakefield Echinox calculations and estimates. This decline comes amid a substantial number of transactions that had not been fully completed by June 30, while their eventual closure in the second half of the year will push the market to a level of transactions comparable to that achieved in 2017, of almost €1 billion.

JLL and LaSalle Investment Management published the latest edition of the Global Real Estate Transparency Index - GRETI. The world's most transparent markets include the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, France, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and Finland.