Allianz announced its intention to combine the strengths of PIMCO, one of the world’s premier fixed income investment managers, and Allianz Real Estate, the captive real estate specialist with more than €70 billion of assets under management. This organic move is proposed to strengthen its Alternatives capability by creating one of the world’s most preeminent real estate managers. It will manage over €100 billion in core, value-add and opportunistic real estate across Europe, the US and the Asia-Pacific Region.

Poland is a major target for international capital with investment volumes in 2019 accounting for 55% of the CEE6 total. The Czech Republic followed with a 24% share and Hungary with 13%. Elsewhere in the region, volumes fell short of 2018 & 2017 volumes. Despite record low yields in most markets and sectors, some further yield compression is anticipated over the next 12 months as strong levels of capital seek product and returns. Colliers International published its investment market summary for 2019.

Demand for alternative residential investments, mainly student housing and residential-for-rent, is clearly growing in Central & Eastern Europe with countries like Poland offering great opportunities for developers. More than 130 real estate professionals came together at the first-ever Alternative Investment Forum, organized by CEE event and intelligence hub Property Forum, in Warsaw.

In 2019, five out of the ten European markets with the highest logistics rental growth were located in CEE. Last year, net effective rents rose more than 5% for Europe as a whole, the highest level ever recorded. This growth is driven by headline rent growth as, after several years of concession reductions, many markets across Europe are currently at very low levels of incentives such as free rent. Prologis published its Logistics Rent Index.

CA Immo has taken the decision to bring an action for damages against the Republic of Austria and the Province of Carinthia for unlawful and culpably biased influence on the best bidder procedure in the context of privatization of the Federal Residential Property companies in 2004 and for the unlawful failure to win the best bidder procedure.

According to new data from Savills, Rotterdam is the most attractive port in Europe for logistics investment, coming in ahead of Barcelona, Valencia, Antwerp and Hamburg. Gdańsk, the largest seaport in Poland and one of the key container terminals in the Baltic Sea, may soon become one of the most modern in Europe thanks to Central Port project planned.

A new record level of modern industrial, office and retail projects is expected to be delivered in 2020, as developers announced projects of over 1.2 million square meters, according to the latest Bucharest City Report published by JLL.

According to the latest RICS Commercial Property Monitor, occupier and investment sentiment remains mostly positive across main CEE markets with the exception of Bulgaria where the outlook is slightly negative. Retail continues to suffer across the region as demand for retail assets fell on both the occupier and investment sides of the market in most countries.

Local investors continue to dominate the Czech property market as new family offices, private wealth and retail funds continue to establish and expand. Colliers International published its Q4 2019 investment, industrial and office market overview of the Czech Republic.

In 2019 the volume of property investment transactions on the Hungarian market decreased slightly in comparison with the previous year (€1.75 billion), however, the total value of transactions has been higher than €1.5 billion every year since 2016. There was a strong and stable demand for office and retail properties, with the volume of hotel sales also increasing significantly, according to Eston International’s H2 2019 investment market report.