Due to the increase in prices of electricity, utilities, services and minimum wage, as well as local taxes and fees, experts from Avison Young Poland are experiencing significant increases in operating costs in office buildings this year. In Warsaw, depending on the class of the property and the components of the operating costs, they have observed an increase ranging from 15% to as much as 30-40%. Tenants are now paying particular attention to the components of the settlement that may vary depending on the building, as well as technological solutions that allow for reducing utility consumption.

Older buildings are making way for new ones, and the trend of redeveloping plots in the centres of large cities in Poland is intensifying. Furthermore, the plans include not only new development projects that arise after demolitions but also transforming existing office buildings into residential projects, including those in PRS (Private Rented Sector) formula, says Avison Young Polska. 

Avison Young presented the results of the investment market in Poland for the first 5 months of 2023. The volume of closed transactions announced to the public from the beginning of this year to the end of May amounted to only around €800 million, while in 2021 and 2022 in the same period, its value amounted to over twice as much. There were no large transactions, which in the first quarter of 2022 accounted for 75% of the total volume. Many buyers are trying to take advantage of the market situation and are bidding well below property valuations, hoping to get a good deal, but owners are taking their time to sell. Avison Young experts - Paulina Brzeszkiewicz-Kuczyńska (Research and Data Manager) and Marcin Purgal (Senior Director, Investment) - expect that in the second half of this year, the commercial real estate market in Poland will be dominated by opportunistic and value-add assets in every sector.

Despite the general slowdown of investment activity in Europe, properties in Poland remain attractive to both local and foreign investors. Avison Young Poland summarised the current situation in the Polish investment market.

Avison Young represented a global investment manager in the sale of a portfolio of four retail facilities, located in regional cities: Stara Cegielnia in Szczecin, Galeria Kosmos in Koszalin, OK Centrum Wałbrzych and OK Centrum Strzegom, with a total area of about 15,000 square meters GLA. Information on the value of the sale and the buyer's entity was not disclosed. All the facilities have a food operator of well-known discount chains - Lidl, Biedronka or Intermarche - as the main tenant. The buyer has plans to refresh some of the acquired assets and re-commercialize them.

The prolonged conflict in Ukraine (the refugee wave) and the significantly reduced credit scores increase the demand for renting apartments and thus, affect the development of the PRS market in Poland. The institutional rental sector will also grow due to the changing perception of homeownership by young people, who value mobility and do not necessarily need to own a home. According to Eurostat data from 2021, about 30 percent of the population in the European Union live in rented apartments, while in Poland this number amounts to only about 13 percent. Paulina Brzeszkiewicz-Kuczyńska, Research and Data Manager at Avison Young Poland, summarises this sector's current situation. 

The mood among investors at MIPIM was mixed: we all expected that the beginning of this year would not be rich in transactions and new projects, and it is true - we are seeing an investment slowdown across Europe, writes Marcin Purgal, Senior Director, Investment at Avison Young. However, in this time of uncertainty, we can say that Poland is enjoying and will continue to enjoy the interest of investors - it is one of the most active markets, across all segments, offering higher rates of return than Western Europe. We have an influx of new capital from the Baltic countries and Scandinavia. Also, the already present capital is still active, such as investors from Central and Eastern Europe as well as a few from Western Europe.

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.

Romanian developer Pedro Construct has completed a new office building spanning 9,500 sqm in Bucharest following an investment of around €18 million.  

Saying goodbye to 2022 means welcoming a year of uncertainty for the fourth time in a row. Two pandemic years, war in Ukraine, historically high inflation and the upcoming spectre of recession have forced the Polish investment market to cope with tough times, says Avison Young Poland