2016 reached the volume of €11.8bn in investment markets across Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, according to a research report by Colliers International. Aside from Poland, investment flows in 2017 will be close to or higher than 2016’s.  The retail sector might see continued rental growth and high investment levels across the region.

The sound global and domestic investment climate generated a major push in property investment activity in Hungary reaching the second highest ever registered annual volume of €1.7 billion in 2016, i.e. 133% up from the previous year. The most popular type of assets were offices with a share of 56%, followed by retail at 25%, while industrial deals accounted for 11% of the overall volume.

Search engines have become an integrated part of the daily life of people and companies as well. Not only the process of buying a book or planning a vacation has changed drastically over the last decade but companies looking for office space are also turning to the Internet more often. The latest Tea & Talk session, co-organised by RICS Hungary and VLK Cresa in Budapest, helped us understand how changes in technology will affect brokers, tenants and landlords.

In 2016, the Warsaw office market grew by 407,000 sqm of new space in 21 projects. The vacancy rate has grown by 1.9 pp on a yearly basis to 14.2 of total stock with central locations having lower occupancy rates than non-central locations. The Polish Office Research Forum has published its data on the Warsaw office market for Q4 2016. 

Prologis announced fourth quarter and full year 2016 activity in Europe. Prologis Europe ended the fourth quarter with 96.7 percent occupancy, an increase of 90 basis points over the course of 2016. The company signed new leases and renewals totalling 718,200 square metres in the fourth quarter and 3.5 million square metres in the full year 2016 – an increase in volume of 54 percent over 2015.

Total real estate investment volume in the Czech Republic exceeded €3.7 billion in 2016, CBRE revealed. The most notable transactions in 2016 were the sale of P3 Logistics Parks, the Park and Florentinum, with 67 transactions being mediated on the Czech market in total. 

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.