Over the past year, many residential markets in CEE that have historically depended on credit buyers, have experienced a significant slowdown. This is not the case with Serbia’s residential market which has been dominated by cash buyers. At the same time, the local commercial real estate market also remains attractive to foreign investors, especially for the development of logistics and industrial facilities. These are just some of the conclusions of last week‘s Balkans Property Forum 2023, organised in Belgrade by Property Forum.

BIG CEE and RC Europe have reached an agreement on the sale and purchase of two retail parks in Serbia, NEST Obrenovac and Nest Kraljevo. The transaction was facilitated by CBRE, the buyer announced.

Justyna Kędzierska-Klukowska, Head of the Warsaw office at Berlin Hyp AG, talked to Property Forum about the current availability of financing and the conditions of the Polish real estate investment market.

S Immo successfully concluded the disposal of the Eurocenter office building in Zagreb, Croatia. In addition to offices, the Eurocenter also includes a bank branch and a café and has a gross lettable area of around 9,000 sqm. The transaction of the centrally located and well communicated mixed use office building with an asset value of €26.5 million to buyer Atlantic Grupa d.d. was carried out by way of a share deal.

CPI Property Group (CPIPG) announced the signing of an agreement concerning the disposal of the ski resort business in Crans Montana in Switzerland. It is a binding agreement for the sale of part of the shares to an American mountain resort company Vail Resorts. The gross transaction value is more than CHF 100 million (€105 million).

Galeria Tarnovia in Tarnów has been bought by a London-based European investment company. The mall has about 17,000 sqm of leasable space (36,500 sqm of total space). The price has not been disclosed. 

Justyna Filipczak, Head of CEE at Cromwell Property Group, talked to Property Forum about the current investment trends, the attractiveness of retail and office properties and the company`s ESG agenda.

CA Immo has reported a good operating performance for the first three quarters of 2023. The results show, among other things, a significant increase in rental income (+9%) and high income from the sale of non-strategic properties (sales result of €158 million, FFO II +88%), which led to an increase in the operating result (EBITDA) of 129% compared to the previous year´s figure. In total, CA Immo generated a consolidated net profit of €61.1 million, which was around 77% below the previous year's figure, primarily due to the non-cash-effective, market-related negative result from revaluation.

How to invest in challenging times? How to diversify one’s investment portfolio to minimize risk? What properties are investors allocating their capital in nowadays? Marcin Purgal, Senior Director, Investment and Paulina Brzeszkiewicz-Kuczyńska, Research and Data Manager at Avison Young Poland answered these questions and many others.

Property markets in CEE have solid building blocks and the region can attract more investment across the commercial sector, with industrial and private student housing standing out, concluded speakers at the CEE Investment Update London 2023 event last week, organised by Property Forum and RICS.