Smart buildings and smart infrastructure are essential parts of a liveable, sustainable, future-proof and truly smart city, something that population centres all over the world aspire to be. Things have started going in the right direction but the Hungarian capital still has a long way to go before it can establish itself as a smart city. The vision of Budapest as smart city, officially approved by the City Council, was presented at the latest Green Talk, organised by RICS and the Hungary Green Building Council (HuGBC).

The office market in Warsaw maintains momentum with demand for office space reaching 194,000 sqm in Q1 2017. JLL summarized Q1 2017 on the office market in Warsaw.

Net take-up on the Czech industrial market in Q1 2017 totalled 238,800 sqm, representing a yearly increase of 13%. The vacancy rate reached 4.7%, having decreased marginally by 4 bps since Q4 2016. The Industrial Research Forum announced the final Industrial Market figures for Q1 2017. 

The first quarter of 2017 saw only one office building delivered to the Prague market. Strong demand from tenants helped the vacancy rate decrease by 1.1 percentage points to 9.4%.The Prague Research Forum announced the office market figures for Q1 2017.

With an impressive 66% growth of retail sales per capita since 2004, Poland stands second to none in Europe. Over the past five years both the retail stock and the retail sales have been growing steadily at the level of 20% cumulatively, according to an analysis released by Cushman & Wakefield. Forecasts for the next decade show a further 40% growth of retail spending per capita, which demonstrates growing affluence of the Polish society.

While Western European investment markets have peaked and investment volumes are going down, CEE markets are having a strong momentum with volumes going up. This growth is most visible in the Czech Republic which posted its strongest Q1 figures on record this year. Over 20 speakers and more than 100 visitors came together in the Czech capital for the first ever Prague Property Summit, organised by Property Forum and RICS, to analyse the potential of the market from a global perspective. 

The vacancy rate on the Budapest industrial market declined 2.2 percentage points q-o-q, reaching a record low of 5.9% at the end of Q1 2017. The Budapest Research Forum published its quarterly industrial market analysis.

Demand continues to be strong on the Budapest office market and with new supply still limited the vacancy rate decreased further in Q1 2017. It now stands at 9.2% which is the lowest rate on record. The Budapest Research Forum published its newest figures.

Poland’s retail market is likely to grow by 511,000 sqm of space in 2017, including 388,000 sqm in the shopping centre format alone. JLL summarized Q1 2017 on the retail market in Poland. 

In Q1 2017, industrial space totalling 162,400 sqm was completed within 10 industrial parks across the Czech Republic, bringing the total stock of modern industrial and logistics space to 6.47 million sqm. The Industrial Research Forum announced its preliminary industrial market figures for Q1 2017.