According to JLL, almost €900 million were invested into Romanian property in 2016, 35% more than in the previous year. 2016 has been a record breaking year at a country level all over CEE with the highest ever volumes recorded in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and second best ever results recorded in Poland, Hungary and the SEE region.
Nearly 100,000 sqm of new office space was delivered to the Budapest market in 2016, the highest figure since 2010. Meanwhile, demand picked up in the last quarter of the year with a large share of the total leasing volume made up of pre-leases and new transactions. At the same time, the office vacancy rate has returned to its downward trajectory, reaching 9.5%, the lowest rate on record.
In Q4 2016 total leasing activity amounted to 133,460 sqm on the Budapest industrial market which marks a 64% rise on a yearly basis. Meanwhile, the vacancy rate reached a new post-crisis low at 8.1% and there is currently no scheme offering more than 10,000 sqm available adjacent space. The Budapest Research Forum published its quarterly industrial market analysis.
In 2016, new supply totalled 497,000 sqm on the Czech industrial market and at the end of the year a further 426,600 sqm of storage and industrial space was under construction. Prime headline rents achieved in the Czech Republic remained stable during Q4 2016 and currently stand at €4.25 sqm/month. The Industrial Research Forum has published its preliminary industrial market figures for Q2 2016.
International real estate advisor Savills has reported that investors into Europe’s retail sector are shifting their interest to some of the continent’s non-core markets. Investment into Europe’s retail sector during Q1-Q3 2016 reached €33.3 billion across the 15 markets that Savills covers, down 28% from the 2015 record volume. However, despite the overall drop of total turnover in the two largest markets of the UK (-18%) and Germany (-46%) during this time period, Europe’s non-core markets in contrast have experienced a significant rise in retail investment. These include: Ireland (223% to €1.46 billion); Poland (126% to €1.4 billion) and Italy (119% to €1.8 billion).
2016 saw the highest developer activity in the history of the Polish office market. New supply is expected to remain strong in 2017 with 1.4 million sqm of new space currently under development. JLL published its preliminary summary of Poland's office market performance in 2016
According to JLL’s review of last year, the Czech industrial market has exceeded the 6 million sqm mark in 2016 which makes it – along with the Polish one – one of the most advanced markets in CEE. 2016 gross-take up on the Czech industrial market totalled 1.2 million sqm which makes it one of the best years on record after the similarly successful years such of 2014 and 2015. Due to strong constant demand, the national average vacancy rate declined to 4%, which is the decade´s low and one of the lowest indicators in the market history.
According to JLL’s preliminary forecasts, the total volume of real estate deals on the Polish investment market in 2016 may amount to almost €4.4 billion. The real standout performer was the retail market which came in with nearly €2 billion, followed by the office segment with €1.7 billion and the industrial/logistics sector with nearly €0.5 billion.
Hotel capacities in Hungary will grow by approximately 2,000 rooms over the next two years, which corresponds to 4,000 new hotel beds, so Hungary and in particular Budapest will be prepared to meet the tourism challenges of coming years, according to KPMG's latest analysis.
During Q4 2016 the total commercial real estate investment transaction volume reached some €270 million in Hungary, pushing the 2016 volume to above €1.7 billion, the highest annual figure since 2007– according to JLL Hungary’s latest preliminary statistics. According to JLL Hungary’s preliminary statistics office transactions generated roughly 48% of the annual investment volumes, followed by retail (27%) and logistics (14%). Hungarian investors generated the highest share of the annual volumes (30%) followed by US-based (20%) and German (14%) investors.
GIENGER Bohemia, a trading company focused on wholesale activities in the field of heating, sanitary equipment, installations, and utility network is a new tenant in the Arete Park Plzeň. The leasable area for GIENGER Bohemia is 3.511 sqm and the operation starts as of March 1st, 2023. The transaction has been mediated by Knight Frank Czech Republic.
Logistics operator JAS-FBG has chosen 7R City Flex Katowice I as a base for its operations, where it will occupy over 6,000 sqm. The facility is scheduled to be commissioned in May 2023.
One of the leading global distributors of chemical raw materials is a new tenant of the P180 office building in Warsaw, developed by Skanska. The new tenant will have approx. 1,500 sq m of office space. The transaction process was facilitated by the consulting company Savills.
New appointments
Milica Nikolic, Marko Radulovic, Nenad Suzić, Mina Kalezic, Srdjan Teofilovic, Tamara Kostadinovic and Goran Zivkovic have been promoted to Partners at CBS International Serbia, part of Cushman & Wakefield Group.
JLL Bratislava branch announced that Lukáš Králik, Senior Consultant at the Office Agency team, became the newest member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in the field of Commercial Real Estate. With this accreditation, JLL raised the number of RICS accredited professionals to eight.
Dominik Pawlak takes the position of Director in the Office Agency department at Avison Young Poland, where he will be responsible for the company's key clients, as well as training junior team members.
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