Poland’s commercial property investment volume surpassed €4 billion in the January-September period of 2020, down by 12.4% on the same period in 2019. Logistics accounted for nearly half of the investment activity while offices made up 38% of the transaction volume in Q1-Q3 2020, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

During the first nine months of 2020, developers completed over 530,000 sqm of office space in Poland: 231,600 in Warsaw and 305,000 sqm in eight major regional markets (Kraków, Wrocław, Tricity, Poznań, Łódź, Katowice, Lublin and Szczecin). Due to the new supply and moderate demand, more than 1.2 million sqm of office space is now available. Axi Immo presented the latest data for the Polish office market as at the end of the third quarter of 2020.

CA Immo signed and closed the acquisition of Postepu 14, a Class A office building located in the Mokotow district of Warsaw, from developer HB Reavis. The property totals around 34,500 sqm GLA and is nearly fully let to tenants such as AstraZeneca and Samsung Electronics. The purchase price is approximately €87 million, with annual gross rental income of around €6.5 million, reflecting a 7.5% gross initial yield.

Retailing is giving way to e-commerce. The pandemic has undoubtedly changed consumer habits, stimulated the development of the online purchasing sector and has underlined new needs in logistics and warehousing. This means that the supply chain will need to be reorganized along with an increase in storage space and moving product location closer to the consumer. As the first warehouse developer in Poland, 7R is rapidly responding to new market realities by offering its tenants facilities of up to 12 meters high. This solution will significantly reduce the costs of storing goods and allow for more efficient use of warehouse space.

Accolade is investing €35 million in the construction of Panattoni Park Bydgoszcz III. With the help of the investor, Panattoni has already completed two modern parks with nearly 90,000 sqm of BREEAM certified sustainable warehouse space in the Bydgoszcz area.

Funds managed by Partners Group are to acquire nine newly built, largely occupied office buildings from BUMA's portfolio and two assets under construction with a total leasable area of approximately 125,000 sqm for circa €200 million. The assets are located in Kraków and Wrocław. REINO Partners will partner with Partners Group to manage the portfolio.

Partially due to the pandemic, demand for office space on Poland’s largest regional markets from January to September was 11% lower year-on-year. Many tenants are temporarily postponing expansion plans and relocation decisions, according to JLL’s summary.

In the third quarter of this year, residential developers operating in the six largest cities in Poland sold 13,300 units, which is 94% more than in the previous quarter. In most markets, these units were sold at higher asking prices than in the second quarter. Thanks to new launches, which returned to the level seen at the beginning of 2020 of 13,000 units, the offer remained stable, according to the latest JLL report on Poland’s residential market.

Due to the prolonged COVID-19 epidemic, some tenants on the Warsaw office market are postponing relocations, looking for sublessees or downsizing their offices. According to the Cresa Polska report "Occupier Economics: Office market in Warsaw in the third quarter of 2020", office take-up amounted to 113,000 sqm in Q3 2020, which is the weakest quarterly result in the last 10 years. Warsaw’s office stock reached 5.8 million sqm.

Demand in Q1-Q3 2020 was 35% lower on Warsaw’s office market than in the corresponding period last year, while another trend is a growing volume of office space available for sublease.  JLL summarised the Warsaw office market at the end of Q3 2020.