Commercial property investment in Romania amounted to €202 million in Q1 2024, up by 69% compared to the same period of last year, with retail accounting for around two-thirds of the deal volume, according to a Colliers report.

Retail parks continue to attract strong investor interest and remain the most popular retail format on the development market. Meanwhile, new brands are entering the Polish retail market, which is also seeing the rise of AI-powered solutions, say BNP Paribas Real Estate experts in their latest report. 

The international developer UDI Group has opened a fund of qualified investors. It is intended for private and institutional investors. In addition to funds or banks, large private investors can also invest in the fund. The lowest possible deposit is CZK 1 million (€40,000). In the future, the fund will also include sub-funds aimed at financing individual large projects. In the first phase, the General sub-fund is opened, which will invest in the UDI Group as a whole, and the Conservative sub-fund invests in loans for individual projects. To investors, the fund will offer appreciation in a more conservative form with a guarantee of a minimum return of 6.5% per year, with a premium return of around 15% per year expected. The status and statutes of the fund were checked and approved by the CNB.

The real estate market in the Czech Republic has recently been most influenced by the overall economic situation associated with current events in Europe including the war in Ukraine, expensive energy prices and high interest rates. According to 2023 PSN data in the residential segment, the situation is favourable for investor purchases.

Real estate investor and fund manager Cromwell Property Group announced the sale of six retail centres across Poland, held by the Cromwell Polish Retail Fund (CPRF), to Star Capital Finance for €285 million.

Skanska has sold the Studio B office building in Warsaw for €86 million to Stena Real Estate AB, an international property company that is a part of the privately owned Swedish Stena Group.

The Prague Hilton, the largest hotel in the Czech Republic, offering almost eight hundred rooms and more than 7.000 sqm of space for holding conferences, may be changing owners soon, informs e15.cz.

Renewable Energy Investments is a proposal from Colliers for investors looking to diversify their property portfolio by expanding into renewable energy projects. The service includes comprehensive transactional advice, investment support for photovoltaic and wind farms and energy storage.

On behalf of Generali Adriatic Value Fund, SIF, Peakside Capital and Generali Investments Slovenia have sold the Austria Trend hotel located in the capital of Slovenia. The buyer is Serbian company Agromarket d.o.o., Kragujevac.

The value of investment transactions in all real estate market sectors, both in Poland and Europe, still significantly deviates from the scale of investments recorded before the outbreak of the pandemic. Nonetheless, last year saw the first signs of recovery in the hotel segment. The sale of the hotel part of The Warsaw Hub by Ghelamco signalled a return to investing international capital in the Polish market. In October last year, the Crown Plaza and Holiday Inn Express hotels were acquired by the French investment fund Corum. 2023 saw a total of four transactions, partially carried out by Polish investment entities, contributing to investments totalling around €83 million in this sector. In the first months of the current year, two hotels along the Baltic Sea changed hands. Walter Herz summarised the situation in the Polish hotel market.