The Prague office market has experienced a decline in the construction of new office buildings over the last three quarters which has also been reflected in a decline in speculative construction. Whereas a year ago almost 80% of offices under construction did not have a secure tenant, this share has now fallen to 52%. Tenants were looking for office space in established office locations in the vicinity of Karlín in Prague 8 and Pankrác in Prague 4 in the first quarter. A quarterly analysis by international consultancy JLL shows that 7.5% of modern office space in Prague is currently vacant, which corresponds to 289,100 sqm of space. However, the supply of so-called subleases, which are not included in the official vacancy register, is also growing. According to JLL's latest analysis, there could be around 80,000 sqm of sublease space.

JLL and iO Partners have announced today that JLL will transfer its existing Leasing, Capital Markets, Valuations Advisory, Consulting and Project Management delivery businesses to iO Partners in Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

Commercial property investments in Romania could hover between €700 and €900 million in 2023, slightly below the average of recent years, with new deals set to be driven by industrial and office projects, according to JLL.

At the beginning of the pandemic, it seemed that many coworking centres or serviced offices could not survive the measures implemented under the Covid-19 pandemic. Shared workspaces, whose philosophy is based on meeting, personal communication, and collaboration, were hit hard by governmental restrictions. But a December analysis by JLL shows promising results; with the retreat of anti-pandemic measures, most coworking and serviced office operators have already felt a new wave of interest, and 2022 has confirmed this trend.

After the start of the pandemic in 2020, and its surge in 2021, the past 12 months have brought renewed market activity in an attempt to offset the previous slowdown. The retail sector, construction, and the IT sector managed to avoid the recession and maintain their position as the least affected industries by the pandemic. The investment market in Bulgaria for the second half of 2022 recorded twice as high activity in terms of volume as in H1 2022, according to the Sofia City Report by JLL with the support of IPC Partners Bulgaria and Avalant. Foreign investors are less cautious to expand to unload their cash given the limited amount of opportunities.

Office leasing volumes in Timișoara amounted to 51,400 sqm during 2022, which was more than half of the total deals closed in regional cities. Iași and Cluj-Napoca were next with volumes of 26,700 sqm and 15,200 sqm, respectively, while in Brașov office leasing covered 5,900 sqm. 

Prague's residential market in 2022 has seen the lowest number of flats sold in the last 10 years. The residential market is slowing down further, but prices of new builds are not falling, JLL said in its latest report.

Despite the lack of significant changes in credit availability, high inflation and rising prices, residential property sales in the last quarter of 2022 bettered the previous quarter’s performance. Sales growth was recorded in each of the six major markets with an average q-o-q of 29%, says JLL advisory agency. 

A 44% higher demand for offices in Prague was recorded year-on-year in Q4 2022. Renegotiations accounted for 58%, the remaining transactions included new leases, expansions, and subleases. By 2025, an additional 400,000 sqm of new office space, currently in different stages of preparation, is due to come online in Prague, says JLL.

The Czech industrial real estate market in 2022 was again remarkably successful. It reached the highest annual new supply in the history of the market on the back of record-low vacancy and all-time high prime rents, JLL reports.