Days of strong development activity on the Budapest office market are once again ahead of us. The market has been growing steadily and cautiously for years now and we have reached a point where tenants looking to immediately rent several thousands of square metres have no options left. BTS developments and large pre-lease deals have dominated property news cycles for over a year now and the time has finally come for developers with speculative projects to make their move. We take a closer look at Budapest office developments.

Appeninn has purchased a property in the Rózsadomb area of the 2nd district of Budapest. The company has signed a lease agreement for 6 years with Pénzügykutató Alapítvány (Financial Research Foundation) regarding the over 800 square meters large office.

pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank provided an investment facility of €34 million to IMMOFINANZ. The proceeds will be utilized for the refinancing of the Nimbus office building in Warsaw. The transaction closed in July 2016. 

Adval Asset Management supported by JLL's Capital Markets team has successfully secured the refinancing of €6 million of Cascade Offices. Cascade Offices is a 4200 sqm office building delivered in 2005 and located on Buzesti Street, in the heart of the Central Business District of Bucharest. Among the main tenants, the project counts Procredit Bank, Enel and Taiwan TC.

Norway-based Libertech Group has signed a lease on more than 700 sqm of office space in Warsaw Spire. The company intends to set up its headquarters for the CEE region in Poland. Cushman & Wakefield has advised the tenant in the lease negotiations. It will also coordinate and oversee the office fit-out.

XL Catlin has signed a lease agreement for office space at UBM’s PEGAZ complex in Wrocław. The tenant was represented by Cushman & Wakefield.

Deutsche Hypothekenbank is acting as the sole lender to a real estate company, which is managed on behalf of four independent investors by Warburg-HIH Invest Real Estate GmbH, for the purchase of the Prime Corporate Center office building in Warsaw. The financing volume amounts to € 40.5 million. In addition to this long-term investment financing, Deutsche Hypo is also providing a short-term bridging loan to cover the VAT element in the amount of € 14.2 million.

At the end of the H1 the total supply in the nine major markets in Poland reached 8.6 million sqm. Developers completed a record amount of modern office space – almost 572,000 sqm. Over 1.4 million sqm of office space is under construction and the capital accounts for 609,000 sqm of new offices. The vacancy rate for Poland is 13.4 percent according to Colliers’ report „Market insights | Office market H1 2016“.

With two companies recently signing a lease agreement in Building E, the fifth building in Krakow office complex Bonarka for Business (B4B) has reached 100% occupancy level. Gerda Broker Sp. z o.o. leases 301,91 sqm GLA on the ground floor of Building E, while Skelia Poland Sp. z o.o. takes 511,21 sqm GLA on the 4th floor. B4B adds approx. 10 000 sqm GLA new office space to Krakow’s office market each year and TriGranit, the developer of the B4B buildings plans to go on with this trend. 

Vacancy rates reached a record low level on the Budapest office market as a result of modest development activity and strong demand from tenants. The Budapest Research Forum has published its quarterly office market analysis.