As more people get vaccinated and offices are reopening, companies need to make a decision on how to manage their workforce. Employees that worked remotely for much of the past year will now circulate between work from home and commuting to the office. But do employees really want to work from home or from the office 5 days a week? CEE-based flex office provider New Work believes that the future belongs to flexible workplaces everywhere and they see demand for hundreds of flex office locations across each country in the region.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, warehouse take-up hit a record high of 1.6 million sqm, reveals an industrial market summary for Q1 2021 released by global real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield. The strongest leasing activity was reported in Poznań, the Warsaw area, Upper Silesia and Central Poland.

Arcadis has published the annual results of the International Comparison of Construction Costs which demonstrates that the building industry has shown its resistance worldwide during the pandemic. Many governments took advantage of fiscal stimuli to support their economies, which has reflected an increase in infrastructure investment of the public sector. Within CEE, Vienna (#30) has by far the highest construction costs, followed by Zagreb (#64), Bucharest (#65), Sofia (#66), Prague (#66), Warsaw (#70), Belgrade (#72) and Krakow (#75).

In the 11 shopping streets under the umbrella of the Shopping Street Management (BUM), some 90% of businesses survived the coronavirus pandemic, and the number of stores for sale or rent is decreasing in more and more places, BUM told Hungarian news wire MTI based on its survey carried out at the beginning of May.

The first quarter of 2021 saw record low vacancies in the greater Prague region, affirming consistent high interest in industrial premises in premium locations. High demand is pushing lease prices upwards, with lease prices having grown by 25 % per sqm year-on-year within the Prague cadastral district, for example. The Czech industrial real estate market is being impeded by drawn-out approval processes and a lack of new options in areas with the greatest demand.

Hungary's construction output in March was 11.5% higher than in the previous month, the Central Statistical Office (KSH) said on Thursday. Hungary’s construction industry has corrected the February slump and the rising trend remained unbroken, but the pre-crisis peaks are still some way off.

GTC’s rental and service revenues decreased by €3.8 million to €37 million in Q1 2021 from €41 million in Q1 2020. Profit before tax and fair value adjustments for Q1 2021 reached €15 million, up from €13 million in Q1 2020. The company published its financial results for Q1 2021.

The latest EBI Construction Activity Report has found that the stagnation of the total value of started construction works has not stopped. Between January and March 2021, construction works in the sector started on HUF 421 billion. This, although not greatly different from the values seen in the previous three quarters, is still the lowest Activity Start indicator of the last two years. Compared to the January-March periods of the previous two years, 2021 started clearly weaker: against the positive Q1 2020, the decline was about 35%, but even over the same period in 2019, there is a 15% decrease.

In its first financial results announcement since the IPO in March 2021, CTP recorded a 16.9% growth of net rental income in Q1 2021 vs Q1 2020, increasing its market share in its core CEE markets to 24% by the end of Q1 2021 and more than doubling leasing activity to 397,000 sqm GLA (compared to 184,000 sqm in Q1 2020).

Cushman & Wakefield has summarised Q1 2021 on the Polish investment market. According to the firm’s experts, this year got off to a positive start, with investment volumes 10% above the five-year average for pre-pandemic first quarters.