About 10 years ago, Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy would mark the peak of the global financial crisis and would be followed by a deep recession in several parts of the world, including Romania. However, Romania has come a long way in the last decade, with the economy seeing some radical transformations, as well as in real estate; the real estate consultancy company Colliers International Romania sees the next 10 years offering an attractive risk/reward profile.

The office stock in the major regional cities of Romania - Cluj-Napoca, Timisoara, Iasi and Brasov – has doubled over the past five years and will continue to grow at an accelerated pace, being expected to exceed the 1 million sqm threshold in 2019, according to the Cushman & Wakefield Echinox Office Market Regional Cities study.

1.16 million sqm of modern office stock, demand hitting 77,200 sqm and 300,000 sqm of space under construction – this is the current situation on the office market in Kraków at the end of H1 2018. The market has grown nearly fourfold in the last decade, according to JLL.

Despite the anticipated large wave of new office supply, the Łódź market is well-balanced. Rents hold firm and tenants continue to target office buildings in the city centre.

The first half of 2018 on the Polish shopping centres market belonged to the biggest agglomerations. Over 172,000 sqm of new space was delivered, which constitutes about 75% of domestic supply. At the same time, the demand for retail space was still very high and the level of vacant buildings remained very low.

The Polish industrial market set three records in H1 2018, according to Cushman & Wakefield. The leasing volume hit 2,100,000 sqm – the highest in the first six months of a year, the vacancy rate fell to an all-time low of 4% (573,000 sqm) and the volume of warehouse space under construction set a new high of 2,250,000 sqm across 66 projects.

Business services centres occupy more than 2.5 million sqm on the Polish office market according to new estimates by JLL. Traditionally, the business services sector has the highest percentage of occupied office space in Kraków (61%).

Office supply on the Tricity market keeps breaking new records with the average annual growth at 9% for the last five years. Tricity is currently Poland’s third-largest regional office market (excluding Warsaw) and continues to strengthen its position, according to Cresa’s report.

The record-breaking era of the Polish retail sector is over now. The market is shaped by limited supply, increased competition, the growth of e-commerce and the aftereffects of the ban on Sunday trading. As pointed out by experts at BNP Paribas Real Estate Poland, in H1 2018 developers operating on the Polish market completed and delivered approx. 191 000 sqm of modern retail space, out of which 110 000 sqm appeared on the market between April and June. As expected, further 300 000 sqm of new supply will be delivered by the end of the year.

Krakow retains the crown as Poland’s largest regional office market as it saw its office stock rise by 17% in the past year to 1.16 million sqm, says real estate advisory firm Cresa in its latest report.