Travel restrictions and the inability to meet in person have caused a lot of headache for many market players but in many cases, it also provided certain types of investors with an advantage. Pavel Streblov, Business Director at Penta Real Estate talked to Property Forum about the company’s development and investment strategy and shared his expectations for the year ahead.

The InTeFi investment group has become the majority owner of the Cassovar Business Center I building in Košice following a €30 million acquisition. The building comprises 13,500 sqm of office space and a 7,000 sqm shopping gallery.

2020 was a record year for industrial and logistics investment volumes with ca. €3.3 billion transacted and a 32% share of the total annual volumes, according to “The CEE Industrial Scene 2020-2021” released by Colliers.

Swedish company Heimstaden, the third-largest provider of rental housing in Europe, continues its investments in housing in the Czech Republic. The company, which bought Residomo with 42,500 apartments mainly in the Moravian-Silesian Region last year, is now expanding its portfolio with a €22.7 million acquisition in Plzeň from Czech developer Daramis.  The new assets include 226 flats and 5 non-residential premises.

The Oresa investment fund bought the Solo logistics and industrial park near Iași from businessman Bogdan Pițigoi. The acquisition marks the fund's entry into the real estate market. The value of the transaction was not made public.

Some of the most mature PRS markets in Europe are Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the Nordics. The Polish PRS market is still in its infancy, but more and more players are declaring their willingness to build portfolios of thousands of rental apartments in Poland. Experts of Cushman & Wakefield present an outlook for the PRS growth in Poland.

Over 80% of the new retail space expected to be completed in 2021 will be in the form of retail parks, including smaller strip malls, highlighting a market shift towards proximity-based schemes or those with a smaller financial footprint for the developer, according to Colliers International Romania. 

Hungary-based residential developer Cordia International Zrt. continues its international expansion strategy. After acquiring UK developer Blackswan last year, the company has announced the acquisition of a new office space in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, England, which will become Cordia Blackswan’s UK headquarter. The property developer is set to refurbish and move into a former branch of Lloyds bank. The historical building will not only be home to Cordia Blackswan, but it will also offer modern office and co-working spaces.

Passerinvest Group has sold the Nová Karolina Park office building in the centre of Ostrava. The new owner is locally based investment group RT TORAX Group.

The activity on the Bulgarian real estate market was strongly affected by the COVID-19 crisis, but we saw more resilience for the investment and industrial sectors which registered both an increase during the last year. For 2021, the forecasts are still positive for the investment property market and for the industrial development sector, according to the Sofia City Report H2 2020, released by JLL Romania with the support of IPC Partners Bulgaria.