ARTICLES LABELLED WITH TAG report

Over the past decade, Hungarian real estate investors have successfully expanded outside of their home market. Firms such as Wing, Futureal, Adventum, Indotek and others have become major players in many European countries, mainly Poland and Romania. They managed to expand via acquisitions of both companies and projects. Part of their funds came from bond issues in Hungary within the Bond Funding for Growth Scheme of the National Bank of Hungary. We have prepared a timeline of the notable transactions and an overview of the market’s key players to provide a better understanding of this trend.

Cushman & Wakefield has summarized the third quarter of 2023 on the Polish office market. Office development activity continues to slow down both in Warsaw and in Poland’s regional city markets. Nominal leasing activity remains high in the largest regional cities, with Warsaw reporting a record number of leases.

CEE's modern industrial and warehouse space exceeded 59 million sqm in H1 2023. In twelve months, over 7,6 million sqm was completed, expanding the market by 16%, and currently, an additional 5 million sqm is under construction. With a 19% share of the total size, the Czech Republic is the second largest market in the region, the first is Poland with 52%. The demand is decreasing, but the nearshoring trend presents new opportunities. Cushman & Wakefield presents its latest findings. 

Despite a challenging financing environment, mixed-use developments are gaining ground in Romania as they provide a better mix of facilities for end–users and tenants, concluded speakers of the mixed-use panel of SEE Property Forum 2023, held in Bucharest recently.

In the first half of the year, there was a sharp decline in the volume of real estate investments in Poland. Despite the market recovery at the end of summer, the total volume in Q1-Q3 2023 amounted to only €1.7 billion. After the first half of the year with few portfolio transactions, in the third quarter, there were already four - in the warehouse and retail sectors, but none of them exceeded the value of €100 million. Interestingly, despite the turmoil, the Polish investment market welcomed 3 new players this year. Avison Young Poland summarizes the property investment market in Poland in Q3 2023

Co-working space provider WeWork, which was once valued at $47 billion, has been forced to file for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US. The filing is set to provide the company with protection from its creditors and landlords as it restructures its vast debts. Based on its latest share price, WeWork is now worth less than $50 million.

The increase of VAT to 9% will lead to a price increase, while buyers have a growing interest in green homes, concluded speakers of the residential panel of SEE Property Forum 2023, held in Bucharest recently.

At €3.2 billion for Q1-Q3 2023, CEE investment activity is at a 10+ year low (down 59% year-on-year). The pricing gap between buyers’ and sellers' expectations remains a significant barrier to seeing volumes return to the 5 and 10-year average levels of €10-11 billion. However, real estate fundamentals in CEE remain fairly robust.  Lower levels of vacancy are being recorded and some good levels of rental growth in certain sectors have been noted, reveals Colliers in its latest report.

Slovakia’s economy surpassed expectations in H1 2023 with the automotive industry leading the charge. The industrial sector flourishes with robust take-up and diversified supply and there is also a continuous rise in rents in all submarkets. Resilient take-up but robust new supply caused rising vacancy, stabilized fit-out costs, rising rents and yields. Cushman & Wakefield published its Marketbeat Analysis for Q3 2023. 

Half of the hotel investors in CEE already address ESG in their transaction due diligence, and 40% are in the process of including it, says Cushman & Wakefield in their newest report.