Publicly traded Hungarian real estate brokerage firm Duna House has released its metrics for the first quarter. Duna House started the year with record quarterly volumes in all of its core business lines in the middle of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. After a series of record highs in 2020, the first quarter, which is usually weak seasonally, brought all-time records in both real estate and credit brokerage in 2021: franchise real estate brokerage grew by 36%, own office real estate brokerage by 37% and credit brokerage by 6% year-on-year.

S Immo generated a profit of €56.9 million for the financial year 2020, closing the year well in the black despite the COVID-19 crisis.

CPI Property Group updated its stakeholders regarding a defamation claim filed in June 2020 by Kingstown Capital Management L.P. and Investhold LTD against CPIPG and Radovan Vitek in New York State court.

Albania remains a dynamic real estate market, growing in both the retail and office sectors. The COVID-19 pandemic had a definite impact in the first quarter of 2020, but with the ease of the quarantine restrictions, the real estate market picked up and recorded higher than usual transaction volumes, particularly in the residential sector. Colliers Albania published its top 5 predictions for the Albanian property market in 2021.

The total stock of purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) in Prague exceeds 28,400 beds. 91% of these capacities are in the ownership of universities and the remaining 9% is provided by the private sector, according to the latest Savills “Student Housing in Prague” report.

COVID-19 has fundamentally challenged and modified the way the global workforce interacts, socializes, and collaborates. Flexible working practices, including working from home, have been heavily adopted as the recent pandemic has forced a trial run of remote working for industries, businesses, and individuals across the entire world. As a result, sentiments towards office space, its value, role, and contribution to the operation of daily work tasks are now being reconsidered both by employees and employers. While the pandemic has boosted the shift towards integrating flexible workspaces into corporate real estate portfolios, the fear that the office will lose its relevance is not realistic. Rather than becoming obsolete, it will become an increasingly valuable asset in facilitating collaboration and driving business growth, writes Gavin Bonner, Vice President of Romanian office developer Genesis Property in an opinion piece for Property Forum.

Just one month ago, we reported that February 2021 had been the strongest month for the past ten years with regard to the number of transactions in the Hungarian housing market. It now appears that the record was short-lived as there were 15,630 residential property deals nationwide in March according to the latest monthly transaction estimate of real estate group Duna House. The figure is more than 1,000 higher than in February.

Romania has development potential for retail projects in smaller cities, and five counties with a combined population of 1.8 million inhabitants are not covered by any modern retail schemes, according to a report by real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield Echinox. 

The hunt for logistics properties is intensifying, many investors are looking for strip malls and specialised stores, new and premium office buildings are increasingly leaving obsolete ones behind. Commercial real estate advisor VLK Cresa summarised the last few months on the Hungarian property investment market.

Take-up on Ljubljana’s office market reached only 46,000 sqm in 2020, one third less than the previous year. Despite strong demand from potential tenants, there is very limited supply available, according to the Ljubljana office market snapshot prepared by S-Invest.