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.

With the growth of the Bucharest office market to 2.3 million sqm, office buildings become more and more important in the recruitment and retention of employees. The new wave of employees is more demanding in terms of office life concepts and expects a building to offer, besides a modern working space, a community to belong to. According Colliers International Romania, in the coming years, property management services will influence the level of employee satisfaction.

Investment flows into the CEE-6 region rose 4% y-o-y in H1 2018, marginally exceeding the pace of 2017’s record year, according to Colliers International’s latest report.

Properties worth up to €3.88 billion have switched owners since January in Poland. JLL analysed the investment transactions concluded in the commercial real estate sector in Poland.

The total investment volume in Slovakia for H1 2018 reached just under €500 million, a significant amount compared to the €535 million for the entire 2017 and record-breaking €850 million in 2016. This is the result of several mid-volume level deals slipping from 2017 Q4 to 2018 Q1/Q2, as well as increased liquidity and investment activity on the Slovak market, according to JLL.