Higher disposable income across CEE markets are outpacing those in more mature Western European economies, with existing retail spaces trying to keep up with growing demand, according to a NEPI Rockcastle report.

Property markets in CEE have solid building blocks and the region can attract more investment across the commercial sector, with industrial and private student housing standing out, concluded speakers at the CEE Investment Update London 2023 event last week, organised by Property Forum and RICS.

iO Partners has decided to promote Ján Bošácky to the position of Head of Data for CEE. This decision is aimed at delivering best-in-class data solutions to regional and international clients. His mission is to build the most robust Real Estate Data Hub, which will, in turn, help maintain the company's status within the countries where iO Partners operates. 

Real estate investor and developer GTC has recorded a like-for-like rental revenue growth of 6% in the first nine months of 2023 compared to the same period of last year. At the same time, the gross margin from rental activity slightly rose to €92 million.

Higher construction costs and the unfavourable economic situation in Europe are impacting the future development of new offices in the region, especially in capital cities like Prague, Bratislava, Budapest and Bucharest.

Over the past decade, Hungarian real estate investors have successfully expanded outside of their home market. Firms such as Wing, Futureal, Adventum, Indotek and others have become major players in many European countries, mainly Poland and Romania. They managed to expand via acquisitions of both companies and projects. Part of their funds came from bond issues in Hungary within the Bond Funding for Growth Scheme of the National Bank of Hungary. We have prepared a timeline of the notable transactions and an overview of the market’s key players to provide a better understanding of this trend.

At €3.2 billion for Q1-Q3 2023, CEE investment activity is at a 10+ year low (down 59% year-on-year). The pricing gap between buyers’ and sellers' expectations remains a significant barrier to seeing volumes return to the 5 and 10-year average levels of €10-11 billion. However, real estate fundamentals in CEE remain fairly robust.  Lower levels of vacancy are being recorded and some good levels of rental growth in certain sectors have been noted, reveals Colliers in its latest report.

Half of the hotel investors in CEE already address ESG in their transaction due diligence, and 40% are in the process of including it, says Cushman & Wakefield in their newest report.

Accolade has expanded its management team with the addition of a new director responsible for the commercialisation of the entire group's portfolio. Joanna Sinkiewicz brings over 16 years of property industry experience and will be responsible for achieving the company's strategic goals.

Most retailers want to attract customers in-store through omnichannel, while e-commerce is not meeting the expectations of food retailers, concluded speakers in the rediscovering retail panel of CEE Property Forum 2023, held in Vienna last month.