The amount of property investments in Romania totaled €336 million in the first half of 2022, up around 13% year-on-year, while solid pipeline of transactions is under negotiation and could be completed by the end of the year, according to a report of real estate consultancy CBRE. 

Property Forum talked to Andrew Sim, Managing Director for Europe and Horațiu Florescu, Chairman & CEO Knight Frank Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece & Serbia, about the segments driving property investments in CEE and the impact of rising inflation and interest rates on transactions.

The Green Point office building in Prague's Smíchov district will expand the assets of WOOD & Company's Office subfund. The eight-storey building has 7.5 thousand sqm of lettable office space available and at the moment half of it is already occupied. The amount of the acquisition from Ronaldsay B.V. was not published by WOOD & Company.

Penta Group has expanded its real estate portfolio in the centre of Prague by another building. In an e-auction, Penta was the only bidder to acquire the former post office building at Masaryk railway station in Hybernská Street for a bid price of CZK 220 million. Now the contract will be signed and the price will be paid. Both parties to the transaction have confirmed it to the Czech Press Agency.

Challenging times are still going on, thus investment market participants are closely following the impact of the turmoil in Europe on the economy and its long‑lasting consequences. In spite of the record-high inflation as well as continuously raised interest rates, the Polish investment market keeps track with 32 investment deals closed in Q2 2022, exceeding €1.2 billion, Avison Young reports.

The Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) has agreed to sell the Lannův palác in the centre of Prague to the building's main tenant, local real estate developer Finep, for CZK 201 million. The party wants to use the proceeds to pay off its debts, novinky.cz reports.

Monia Dobrescu, Partner, Mușat & Asociații spoke to Property Forum about the financing environment for the real estate sector in the context of the crisis in Ukraine and the law firm’s development plans for this year. The uniform application of the regulatory acts in the field is an issue that has an impact on players in the real estate market, and progress is being made in this area, Monia adds.

The real estate fund NEMO, founded by the real estate group Českomoravská Nemovitostní three years ago, enlarged its portfolio to a total value of over CZK 3 billion. The new acquisition is the Corso Karlín office complex in Prague 8, the fund announced today.

The resources of the PRS sector in Poland are growing. Last year, almost one in five apartments was built for institutional lease, which also had a significant impact on developers' results. According to Walter Herz, in 2021, investments in portfolios of residential for rent in Poland amounted to approximately €725 million. There are already almost 8,000 units on the Polish market offered in the PRS segment and other several tens of thousands of apartments under construction.

Garbe Industrial Real Estate GmbH raised approximately €400 million in equity among German and international investors for its investment fund, “Garbe Logistics Real Estate Fund Plus III” (GLIF+III). The Luxembourg special AIF (SICAV-RAIF) without maturity is an Article-8 fund with a manage-to-ESG strategy. With a planned investment volume of €5 billion, it is Garbe’s largest pan-European fund for institutional investors to date.