Office building transactions on the Romanian market reached the highest level of the last decade in 2018, as 20 assets with a total GLA of 220,000 square meters and a value of more than €500 million were transacted only in Bucharest, according to Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

Logistics real estate rent growth remained considerable in 2018, with rents rising 6% globally. Consistent with the past several years, the U.S. outperformed, with 8% growth. However, other regions were just as notable. China was a clear leader with 8% growth. In Europe, rents rose 5%, a near doubling in growth from 2017 and the fastest annual growth in the region based on data reaching back more than 10 years, according to new research by Prologis.

Hungary’s investment market peaked in 2017 but a solid €1.8 billion was transacted in 2018 with local investors closing 65% of purchases on the buyer side. Property Forum summarised some of the key market trends presented at CBRE’s yearly Re-View business breakfast.

Developers and real estate investors completed land acquisitions with a cumulative value of around €245 million last year in Bucharest, a new record for the past ten years, according to the Cushman & Wakefield Echinox which has monitored 31 medium and large transactions.

In the second half of last year, gross take-up decreased in the two largest regional office markets of the Czech Republic. The Regional Research forum announced the Brno and Ostrava office market figures for H2 2018. 

Last year’s demand for office space on Poland’s markets was 1.5 million sqm. 744,000 sqm of office space was delivered to market while a further 1.6 million sqm is under construction, according to JLL’s report.

2018 was a record-breaking year for the Polish commercial property investment market. The total volume of transactions completed in the office, retail, warehouse and logistics as well as hotel sectors came to nearly €7.3 billion, which represents a y-o-y growth of approx. 41%. This is a result not previously recorded on the Polish market, according to a report by BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland.

New retail supply amounted to approximately 420,000 sqm in 2018, pushing Poland’s total retail stock up by 3% to 14.7 million sqm. Nearly 30% of the new supply was completed in small-scale shopping centres and retail parks (sized below 20,000 sqm). Extensions of existing shopping centres and retail parks delivered approximately 60,000 sqm of new retail space. Cushman & Wakefield presented a summary of the Polish retail market in 2018.

Bucharest’s central business district developed around Victoriei Square is registering an upward evolution in office activity, with a historic record-high volume in take-up and positive growth in pipeline stock, as showed by the latest office analysis conducted by Activ Property Services.

Colliers International sees the most important macro indicator for CEE in 2019, Eurozone interest rates, flat-lining at zero. This should stem some of the potential angst over tightening credit conditions, keep liquidity high, buyers interested and help pricing to plateau. Colliers International foresees selective compression in capital city prime office yields and still like the logistics sector. Absent a Eurozone financial crisis, funding from lenders should remain a support. Colliers International published its latest CEE report.