Increasing costs of energy and construction materials have visibly reinforced the need to think about the carbon footprint of the real estate industry through construction and building efficiencies. Benjamin Perez-Ellischewitz, Principal at Avison Young in Hungary talked to Property Forum about the impacts of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine on the real estate market and shared his thoughts about companies’ evolving approach toward ESG.

The pan-European developer, which entered the Hungarian market a relatively short time ago, sees a lot of opportunities in the countryside to build logistics centres for different end-users. Property Forum asked László Kemenes, Managing Director of the Hungarian branch about the company's plan for expansion and tackling the current general difficulties in the property industry.

GLP, a leading investor and developer of logistics warehouses and distribution parks, has signed a long-term lease agreement with online retailer Alza.hu for a 22,000 sqm warehouse at Sziget Logistics Centre, Hungary. Construction is already in progress, and the building is due to be finalized in Q3 2022.

The façade, the ground floor hall, and the reception of the Atrinova office building in Budapest's CBD have been completely renewed with a modern environmentally conscious architectural approach. 

The group entered the market with the acquisition of Le Masserie shopping centre in southern Sicily and a portfolio of 13 supermarkets, located mainly in Northern Italy. 

House prices in Hungary have reached a new record in 2021. In Q4 2021, the biggest jump occurred in secondary cities compared to the last quarter of 2020 (25% year-on-year) followed by Budapest (11% year-on-year), the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) reports.

Immofinanz has just leased the last free unit in its Hungarian Stop Shop portfolio, reaching a 100% occupancy rate. The newest and last tenant is Sportisimo in Stop Shop Keszthely. The company has roughly 136,000 sqm of fully leased retail space in 14 locations across Hungary. 

The Hungarian construction industry started off this year with an exceptionally high Activity Start indicator: nearly HUF 1,300 billion worth of construction works started in Q1 2022. The Activity Start of EBI Construction Activity Report in the first quarter is a new record (construction works have never started in such a high value in one quarter) and exceeded the level of Q2 2021 (the highest so far) by almost 37%. Yet, this spike is mainly thanks to the launch of two major infrastructure projects, according to the EBI Construction Activity Report, prepared by Buildecon, Eltinga (creation of indicators and development of algorithms for aggregation) and iBuild (project research and project database).

David Ebbrell, CEO and Mirta Ceranac Poljak, Managing Director for Croatia at M7 Real Estate talked to Property Forum at MIPIM about investment strategy, economic challenges and opportunities for sustainable growth.

From now on property management, renting and legal services at CPI Hungary are performed by the employees of the company in all retail portfolios.