Raied Tanous, CEO of Asbud Group has talked to Property Forum about the recent changes in the Polish residential market, galloping inflation and surging construction costs.

Yareal announced that it has signed a contract with a general contractor responsible for completing the final stages of its flagship office complex, LIXA. FineTech Construction will build two office buildings with a total area of 29,000 sqm near Daszyński Roundabout. So far, nearly 49,000 sqm of modern offices have already been developed here at LIXA, including the most recently commissioned building C, which will soon be ready to welcome its first tenants. 

P3, an investor and developer of European warehouse facilities, has acquired 29 hectares of land in Kąty Wrocławskie. This newly purchased plot is located near Wrocław, in the Lower Silesia region, one of the most attractive warehouse locations in Poland. Logistics facilities will be built on the site comprising a total area of around 175,000 sqm.

MNK Partners has appointed real estate advisory firm Savills as property manager for its newly acquired office building NC3.

Negative factors such as the pandemic, uncertainty caused by the conflict in Ukraine and a rapidly rising inflation rate have significantly affected property buyers' sentiments and decisions.

Panattoni has started the construction of the first Polish logistics centre for Hermes Fulfilment. The investment is being built in Iłowa in Western Poland. The 150,000 sqm project will be one of Hermes’ largest hubs in Europe and is to provide employment for around 1,900 people. The company is planning to open the centre by the end of 2023 following an investment of around €300 million.

The Polish Chamber of CommercialReal Estate (PINK) has published figures summarizing the office market in eight major regional markets in Poland (Kraków, Wrocław, the Tri-City, Katowice, Poznań, Łódź, Lublin, Szczecin) for Q1 2022. 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.

Real estate advisory firm Savills estimates that the prices of building materials for new commercial real estate construction in Poland increased by close to 30% in the past 12 months and expects demand for technical consultancy to grow. The Building & Project Consultancy team of Savills Poland has summarised its activity in 2021, a year in which it completed close to 60 projects for commercial properties with a combined area of 1.5 million sq m and almost doubled its headcount.

Office Warsaw faces major challenges: deteriorating macroeconomic indicators, rising construction and utility costs, and upward pressure on rents and service charges. In addition, there are delays resulting from broken supply chains, the spectre of a supply gap and a strong reshuffling in the demand structure. On the other hand, the capital city market reports a quarterly record in lease agreements signed and attracts an IT giant that buys one of the newest office-mixed use complexes; all this is according to the summary of the first quarter in the Warsaw office market prepared by BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland experts.

The latest report from research firm Spectis indicates that following a strong start to the year, the outlook for the construction sector over the coming months of 2022 is now less bright. The expected slowdown can be indirectly caused by the ongoing war in Ukraine, which only aggravates the problems the market has been facing previously, such as soaring prices of raw materials, building materials, and energy sources or the shortage of labour.