Bulgaria is witnessing a continuous decline in residential real estate transactions for the fourth consecutive quarter. According to data from the Registry Agency, property purchases across the country have decreased by 15% during Q2 2023, reaching  54,371 transactions in total.

UniCredit Bank Austria's Purchasing Managers' Index sink to a record low of 31.6 points in April. A strong rebound is expected from Q3 2020 after the easing of lockdown restrictions.

Hungary's economy could rebound with 4.2% GDP growth in 2021 following a 3.1% contraction this year, according to a forecast by the International Monetary Fund published on Tuesday. According to the IMF, Hungary's economy is surprisingly resilient to the crisis, with only Serbia expected to do slightly better this year in the region.

Countries in CEE acted early by closing their borders and introducing lockdown measures in response to the pandemic. Now, Austria and the Czech Republic are among the first in Europe to begin lifting their coronavirus restrictions.

The topic of Property Forum’s second online panel was the impact of the coronavirus lockdown on real estate financing in CEE. After the economic outlook of Commerzbank’s Senior EM Strategist, Tatha Ghose, four expert bankers discussed the short and long-term effects of the pandemic, such as how the lockdown affects ongoing deals, what kind of recession are we looking at and how the perception of individual asset classes may change in light of the current events. According to the experts, the recovery is expected to take longer in Hungary and Poland, while the rebound may come sooner in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

According to the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), which measures the activity level of purchasing managers in a given sector, Hungary's manufacturing industry was hit much harder by the coronavirus crisis than the same sector in other CEE countries. The Polish and Czech PMI show that these economies were less affected by the downturn in March than the economy of Hungary.

Governments in CEE countries have introduced further measures to ease the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the economy. Property Forum summarised the latest actions.

Policy-makers face the harsh dilemma of having to mitigate an economic slowdown and revenue shortfalls, in addition to a rapidly growing infection rate. The biggest challenge for the next couple of months will be to determine how long lockdown measures should be kept in place.

Erste Bank Group anticipates an economic slowdown for 2020 in most CEE countries due to the coronavirus situation. The bank’s report mentions a negative scenario as well, which would result in a massive recession in the region.

Austria’s economic growth curve is set to follow a V-shaped course in the wake of the coronavirus and the containment measures implemented, according to Bank Austria, a member of UniCredit Group.