In 2019, the Polish housing market experienced an acceleration and increase of projects in the rental and private student housing sectors. Poland is still on the radar of large foreign investors and some of them have been able to conclude spectacular deals. Although potential institutional buyers still aren’t able to purchase turn-key portfolios on an expected scale, and entering the market mostly means building new stock, the institutional rental sector is drawing more and more interest and will undoubtedly become a desired category of safe assets in 2020.

According to JLL data, office take-up in Warsaw grew by 270,000 sqm year-on-year in Q3 2019. At the same time, 185,000 sqm of space was delivered to the market during recent months. This means that the need for additional space exceeded new supply by as much as 85,000 sqm. This impressive performance has further fueled developer activity. 790,000 sqm of space is under construction, with a significant proportion of this total already being leased.

Romanian bank BCR has completed the sale of the historic Oscar Maugsch Palace, located on Bucharest’s Universitatii Square, to the Luxembourg-based Vivion Investment Fund, controlled by Isaac and Amir Dayan from Israel. The value of the transaction is estimated to be between €30-35 million, according to unofficial sources quoted by Economica.net.

Property Forum is pleased to announce it is partnering with Unissu, the world’s PropTech marketplace, to launch Connect, the global real estate equivalent of TED Talks. Budapest will be one of the 15 cities globally where hand-picked speakers will record their speeches for a global audience.

The Board of Directors of EPP N.V., the largest owner of retail real estate in Poland in terms of GLA listed on the stock exchanges in Johannesburg and Luxembourg, has announced that it will nominate Tomasz Trzósło for appointment as CEO to succeed Hadley Dean, whose term of office is due to expire. Tomasz Trzósło is expected to assume his role in May 2020. The appointment is subject to approval by the general meeting of shareholders.

Over the years, warehouse locations outside Poland’s five largest regions have attracted limited interest from institutional investors. However, along with the development of the country's road network and increasing difficulties in recruiting employees in major Polish metropolitan areas, new locations are becoming increasingly attractive for tenants and landlords. In fact, according to a report by JLL, Hillwood Poland and ManpowerGroup, these factors may well translate into higher investment volumes in emerging markets in the next few years.

Ghelamco Poland has chosen JLL as its exclusive leasing agent for its Wołoska 24 office building in Warsaw. Wołoska 24 is a modern, 11-floor office building offering approx. 21,000 sqm of office space, and approx. 1,000 sqm of retail and service space located on the ground floor.

Dutch-based property manager MVGM announced the closing in Poland as part of the previously announced acquisition of JLL’s European property management business and the alliance partnership in 10 European countries. As of today, the JLL activities in Portugal and Spain are also integrated into the MVGM company. This marks the completion of the acquisition which includes an additional 12 million square meters to the MVGM European portfolio and access to additional high-profile clients including leading global real estate investors.

Resco, one of the global leaders in mobile business solutions, has leased more than 2,400 square meters at Nivy Tower, the newest office building by the Slovak developer HB Reavis. With this lease, the company ranks among the first tenants of the highest high-tech building in Slovakia and in April 2020 will move its Slovak headquarters together with all 100 employees to the new modern and functional premises.

According to data from JLL, Poland's supply of mixed-use commercial space has increased nearly six-fold over the last ten years. Mixed-use projects often require major revitalization and reconstruction, in a number of Poland's major metropolitan areas. Such projects include Elektrownia Powiśle, The Warsaw HUB and Koneser in Warsaw, Monopolis in Łódź, and Browar Lubicz in Kraków.