Investments in the private rented sector (PRS) and industrial projects continue to grow in Central and Eastern Europe despite economic and geopolitical challenges, concluded speakers during the investment strategies panel at CEE Property Forum 2022 in Vienna.

Despite rising costs and rents, the rented residential sector continues to ride high as demand booms and is poised to remain a more lucrative investment opportunity than asset classes such as office or retail. Bonard has spoken to leading real estate specialists to investigate the factors behind the sector’s success.

Members of the panel on ESG investments at CEE Property Forum 2022 in Vienna agreed that environmental issues are addressed much better than the social and governance parts of ESG. Panellists emphasised that leading organizations in the CRE industry should give clear guidance for improving 'S' and 'G' performance at all levels.

In the first half of the year, Globalworth’s net profit significantly improved to €32.6 million (H1 2021: €12.5 million) due to a fair value gain on investment property and an increase in the share of profit of equity-accounted investments in joint ventures. Globalworth released its interim report and unaudited consolidated financial results for H1 2022.

CBRE has analysed the Czech commercial real estate market in detail and estimates that the next six months of this year will be as strong as the first six months of the year, which hit the €1.15 billion mark. By the end of the year, according to CBRE, the €2 billion level should be reached, similar to last year and the year before.

Accolade Industrial Fund reported a crown appreciation of 4.23% in the second quarter of this year. For the entire first half of 2022, the fund achieved an appreciation of 5.45%. These figures were driven primarily by rental growth in the fund's portfolio of 1.2 million sqm of industrial property.  

Hungary’s high construction activity start in Q1 2022 was followed by a slowdown in Q2 2022. The EBI Construction Activity Report has found that between this April and June construction works started at a value of around HUF 800 billion. Although the value of projects entering construction decreased in Q2, these are not low numbers at all as Activity Start has been the 5th highest (on a quarterly basis) of recent years. It should be added, though, that recently construction costs have dramatically increased, massively pushing up the Activity Start indicator calculated at current prices, while at constant prices the volume would be lower.

CPI Property Group's real estate portfolio increased to €20.9 billion in the first half of 2022. It was the result of two large acquisitions of Immofinanz and S Immo and therefore also the net rental income reached the level of €263 million and net business income went up to €276 million, CPIPG reported in the latest press release on half-year financial results for 2022.

The net profit of logistics developer VGP was €153.1 million for the first six months of 2022. The first half of the year came up with €35.4 million worth of signed and renewed lease agreements, which annualised means €281.1 million of the total rental income and another €88.1 million of the annual rent is expected from 40 projects with 1,346,000 sqm under construction that are almost totally pre-let (87.4%). VGP published the results at the end of August.

As of summer 2022, leasing activity in the Kyiv office market was near a standstill and primarily driven by office optimization, as well as lease renewals and renegotiations of existing leases, according to the latest research of CBRE Ukraine. Whereas, as of the beginning of June, we observed a slight recovery in the level of office occupancy by employees who continued to work or who returned to Kyiv. Thus, typical office attendance among corporate occupiers was ca. 10% with many tenants in IT, high tech & telecommunications, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, agriculture, FMCG and industrial sectors planning to increase occupancy to 15%.