The latest EBI Construction Activity Report, prepared by Eltinga, Buildecon, and iBuild, has found that after the weak Q3 2022, Q4 2022 saw a slight nominal expansion in activity-start in Hungarian construction. The value of started construction works was still very low; between October and December 2022 they totalled roughly HUF 650 billion.

Investors in Poland are looking for projects that can ensure a good profit. Will we soon see a flood of investments based on changing the function of existing real estate on developed land? Piotr Szymoński, Director at Walter Herz tries to answer that question. 

In 2021, the warehouse sector strongly dominated Poland's commercial real estate market in terms of volume. The value of transactions - approximately €3.2 billion - accounted for over half of the total value of investment transactions. In 2022, the sector's result - €2 billion – accounted for "only" a 34% share in the total transaction volume in Poland, says Bartłomiej Krzyżak, Senior Director, Investment at Avison Young Poland.

Property Forum is proud to be partnering with Ukrainian-British exhibition company "Premier Expo" to join its ReBuild Ukraine trade exhibition and conference, which intends to help Ukrainian communities affected by the war to restore a normal life, as an information partner. The event will be held in Warsaw, Poland on 15-16 February 2023.

While the investment volume will cool this year after the record of transactions worth €‎1.25 billion that was closed in 2022, Romania will remain on the radar of investors throughout 2023, with some trends set to shape the development. CBRE Romania has published a report summarising the driving forces for the local industry this year.

The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC), the coalition representing over 5,000 organizations from across the building value chain, has asked Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to back amendments to the Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD) designed to accelerate building renovation and to address total lifecycle emissions of buildings. 

The PBSA sector has registered another strong year with occupancy rates and rents rising,  according to the newly released Student Housing Annual Report by Bonard. While soaring inflation, interest rates and rising costs in the last quarter of 2022 have slowed down investment transactions, the overall outlook is positive and experts expect the sector to keep growing in the next two years.

Despite many negative factors, Q4 2022 showed that the economy in Slovakia should grow by 1.8% in 2022. Energy prices were stabilized, inflation peaked and we could see the increase in yields. The Slovak industrial sector remained once more the most resilient real estate segment and experienced very solid performance in 2022. In the same period, the lack of new supply resulted in lowered vacancies in offices. Overall retail park projects dominate both this year’s new supply and future retail development with limited space for larger retail schemes due to high saturation. Cushman & Wakefield published its market reports for Q4 2022.

The number of property deals and the volumes transacted plunged in Q4 2022 in comparison to the final quarter of 2021 in major EMEA markets due to higher interest rates and financing costs amid surging inflation. However, property investment will resume its growth path this year, as the inflation and interest rates become more stable, says Colliers.

According to Michael Klien from WIFO (the Austrian Euroconstruct member institute), 2022 was the second year of recovery for the European construction industry after the outbreak of the pandemic. The year-on-year growth rates of 3% were, however, much lower than in 2021 (+5.8%) owing to the sharp rise in construction costs, Euroconstruct reports in its latest press release.