The Bucharest office closed Q1 2019 with decent numbers: a gross take-up of 105,000 sqm, out of which the net take-up was 29,000 sqm, and 93,000 sqm of deliveries. Data from Colliers International Romania show that the demand came mostly from IT&C companies, despite the tight labour market.

Total demand in the first quarter of 2019 reached 79,980 sqm on Budapest’s office market, representing a 12.2% decrease year-on-year. New leases accounted for 45% of the total leasing activity, according to BRF’s latest figures.

Developers are revising their strategies. The convenience centre and mixed-use projects segment is growing. 2019 could see 430,000 sqm of new retail space in Poland. JLL summarised conditions on Poland's retail market at the end of Q1 2019.

A new report by Colliers International and international law firm CMS has revealed that Central and Eastern Europe may be facing a significant shortfall in student housing in the next 10 years. The firms’ third annual joint Real Estate report, ‘Student housing in CEE – the next big thing?’ looks at the evolution of the student housing sector in the core CEE-6 countries, and canvasses views from investors on the relevance of CEE student housing as an asset class and their expectations for the future.

Up to 750,000 sqm of modern logistics and industrial space could be delivered this year in Romania, which could push the local stock of industrial spaces to over 4 million sqm, according to Dunwell, a real estate consultancy firm that specializes on the industrial segment.

As shopping centre markets reach maturity in most European countries, there will be growing polarisation between successful prime schemes and struggling secondary sites which have to diversify to survive, according to new research from Cushman & Wakefield.

The increased interest of global corporations in coworking spaces was a notable trend that impacted on the office markets of the four largest capital cities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in 2018. The total flexible office stock of Budapest, Moscow, Prague and Warsaw stands at 286,000 sqm, accounting for approximately 1% of the combined office market of these cities (29.9 million sqm). Demand generated by coworking operators in 2018 made up 5% of the overall office take-up in the CEE capital cities.

As CEE economies and commercial real estate markets grow in size, they also grow in scope to include new sectors. Student accommodation has been one of the most successful of the new options for investors and developers in Western Europe to consider over the past ten years. The same may happen in the CEE region over the next decade, according to the third annual Colliers-CMS joint CEE Real Estate Compass report which is themed on student housing.

The modern retail stock in Bucharest remained stable in 2018, at 1.2 million square meters, a level which is 7% higher than in the Central-West region of the country which reached 1.18 million square meters, and twice the corresponding value of the Moldova region which reached 595,000 square meters, according to Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

The Romanian office market started promising in 2019, given that in the first quarter, approximately 124,500 square meters were leased nationwide, almost 41% more than in the first quarter of last year.