ARTICLES LABELLED WITH TAG Colliers

A new report by Colliers International and international law firm CMS has revealed that Central and Eastern Europe may be facing a significant shortfall in student housing in the next 10 years. The firms’ third annual joint Real Estate report, ‘Student housing in CEE – the next big thing?’ looks at the evolution of the student housing sector in the core CEE-6 countries, and canvasses views from investors on the relevance of CEE student housing as an asset class and their expectations for the future.

As CEE economies and commercial real estate markets grow in size, they also grow in scope to include new sectors. Student accommodation has been one of the most successful of the new options for investors and developers in Western Europe to consider over the past ten years. The same may happen in the CEE region over the next decade, according to the third annual Colliers-CMS joint CEE Real Estate Compass report which is themed on student housing.

Sylwia Pędzińska, Senior Partner at Colliers International and Head of the Workplace Innovation department, has been appointed head of a newly created Innovation & Knowledge department for Colliers’ Polish business. Dorota Osiecka will replace Sylwia as the new director of Workplace Innovation.

Landlords have never been under such scrutiny, said Colliers International. Tenants want more flexibility, increasingly diverse locations, heightened service levels and a culture that puts their business needs at the heart of their real estate choices

Expect retail to regain popularity as an asset class especially in tourism-led locations, Colliers International said at MIPIM 2019. Whilst logistics has benefited from the growth in e-retailing, there are signs that is has hit maximum penetration across Europe. In the meantime, pure-play retailers are resorting to omni-channel strategies to survive and deliver profits. This has put the onus back on the need for retail space supported by modern logistic facilities.

Money from East Asia burst on to the CEE scene in 2016-17, mainly via large industrial sector portfolio deals. The industrial sector received the majority of 2018’s flow as well, though diversification via larger single asset deals is beginning to occur. Asian investors appear to need liquidity: looking by CEE-6 destination, Poland presently dominates.

There is a growing global war chest of capital for real estate, with institutional investors looking to increase their real estate allocations and new sources of capital emerging, according to Colliers International’s latest report. Increasing allocations to real estate from global institutions reached at least $840 billion in 2018, adding to the $370 billion in closed-end funds waiting to be deployed to real estate in 2019.

Colliers International sees the most important macro indicator for CEE in 2019, Eurozone interest rates, flat-lining at zero. This should stem some of the potential angst over tightening credit conditions, keep liquidity high, buyers interested and help pricing to plateau. Colliers International foresees selective compression in capital city prime office yields and still like the logistics sector. Absent a Eurozone financial crisis, funding from lenders should remain a support. Colliers International published its latest CEE report.

2018 ended with a significant premiere on the local real estate market: Romanian investors ranked second in the generated volumes by nationality. Almost €200 million were spent to buy commercial properties (about a quarter of the total volume), a significant leap of more than five times compared with 2017, according to Colliers International.

In Greek mythology, Icarus flew too near to the sun, melting the wax on his wings and he plunged into the sea. According to Colliers International’s new research, this might be a correct analogy for the current state of the construction markets in CEE.