Poland’s investment market continued to attract significant investment activity in 2021 with an annual transaction volume of €5.9 billion. A record number (166) of transactions were closed by 80 active investors, according to Avison Young’s annual investment market summary. The company expects that 2022 will see the great comeback of the office sector through increased interest in core and core+ assets in both Warsaw and regional cities.

Cain International, the privately held investment firm operating in the United States and Europe, and its local development partner, White Star Real Estate, have secured a €36 million financing facility from PKO BP, for the delivery of The Park Kraków office complex.

CA Immo has signed and closed the sale of the R70 office building in Budapest. The sale of the property, which was completed in 2002 and comprises 19,200 sqm of gross leasable area (GLA), has closed in line with the book value as of Q2 2021. The buyer was local construction company Épkar Zrt. which used funds obtained through the National Bank of Hungary's Funding for Growth Scheme.

Avison Young has advised M7 Real Estate in the disposal of the Mokotow Plaza office building in Warsaw. The buyer is Vienna-based investor FLE GmbH, entering Warsaw office market with this purchase.

Investment transactions on the Romanian real estate market could exceed the €1 billion threshold this year, considering the projects in various stages of negotiation, according to Colliers.  At present, there are several transactions in the pipeline worth at least €100 million each, and others are ready to go on the market

Financial companies were the most active in the Bucharest office lease market during 2021, according to a report by real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

Skanska’s Wave office building in Tri-City has received WELL Core & Shell certificate. This is the first such certificate on the Tri-City market and the first at the Gold level outside Warsaw. The WELL Core & Shell certificate confirms that the investor has prioritized solutions and amenities focusing on people, their health and needs.

According to “Office Occupier: Office Market in Warsaw, Q1-Q4 2021”, a report published by Newmark Polska, despite many challenges that the office market faced in 2021, the closing months of the year brought the long-awaited stabilization. Occupier activity in the fourth quarter bounced back to pre-pandemic levels and the city’s vacancy rate remained high, albeit relatively stable. Meanwhile, developers were slowly restarting planned projects.

The Polish Chamber of Commercial Real Estate (PINK) has published figures summarizing office markets in eight major regional markets in Poland (Kraków, Wrocław, the Tri-City, Katowice, Poznań, Łódź, Lublin, Szczecin) for Q4 2021. The data is sourced from advisory companies from the commercial real estate sector (BNP Paribas Real Estate, CBRE, Colliers, Cushman&Wakefield, JLL, Knight Frank, Newmark, Savills) and includes information on existing modern office stock, new completions, take-up volumes and vacancy rates.

Bank PKO BP inked a long-term deal to lease ca. 34,550 sqm office space in the Warsaw Skysawa project by Polski Holding Nieruchomości (PHN) to be completed in Q4 2022, PHN said in a market filing without disclosing the value of the deal.