According to the RICS Commercial Property Monitor, Hungary has the strongest occupier sentiment and the Czech Republic has the strongest investment sentiment among the 40 countries surveyed in Q1 2019. Market expectations remained fairly positive across Central and Eastern Europe in the first quarter of the year, with the share of those stating that we have reached the peak of current property cycle decreasing compared to previous quarters.

Prominent investors, developers, advisors and other professionals discussed how technology and climate change are rewriting the rules of the real estate game at the RICS’s latest global summit. Here are our key takeaways from the RICS World Built Environment Forum, organized in New York this May.

Property Forum and RICS are organizing Prague Property Forum for the third time this year. Just like in previous years, leading decision makers in real estate will come together in Prague to discuss the future of our industry. CEOs, influential investors, bankers, developers, fast-growing proptech start-up founders, architects and valuers will analyse the potential of the Czech property market from a global perspective, providing an excellent networking opportunity.

Approximately €754 million was invested in Polish commercial property in the first quarter of 2019, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s latest investment market report.

The pace of yield compression decelerated across Europe’s commercial real estate markets in the first quarter of 2019, according to Cushman & Wakefield’s latest DNA of Real Estate report.

The phenomenal growth of the ‘flex’ sector is set to continue apace in years to come, with flexible workspace in EMEA grow by over 50% by 2022 and the number of office workers occupying this space growing to 750,000 across the region. That’s according to global real estate advisor, Colliers International, which recently released its Flexible Workspace Outlook Report 2019.

According to the RICS Global Commercial Property Monitor (GCPM), 38% of respondents reported that climate risks are not important or irrelevant for investors. In addition, according to the Global Construction Survey (GCM), over a third, (36%) of respondents believe that though compared to two years ago, investor focus has shifted towards building designs that are energy efficient and carbon neutral, it is only limited to a few niche investors.

Cushman & Wakefield has published new research assessing 48 of the most suitable locations for global manufacturers to expand or relocate their operations in EMEA, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. While manufacturers’ individual requirements will vary, China performs strongly thanks to increasing government investment in the adoption of technology, while the United States is most attractive for those seeking to minimise exposure to economic and political threats, followed by Canada and the Czech Republic. Considering basic criteria the Czech Republic is fifth globally and first in Europe.

PropTech Romania which is the first Romanian innovation platform designed for the real estate market, hosted the first European real estate hackathon in Bucharest on 12 and 13 April 2019.

Every year, Property Forum and RICS gather leading decision makers of European property markets at Prague Property Forum to discuss the future of our industry. CEOs, influential investors, bankers, developers, fast-growing proptech start-up founders, architects and valuers will come together on June 4, 2019, at the Cubex Centre in Prague to analyse the potential of the Czech property market from a global perspective. The conference, this year organized for the third time, has attracted highly respected speakers from the Czech as well as European property markets, some of them being present in Prague for the first time.