Romania and Hungary are seeing new capital flowing into their respective commercial real estate markets as a consequence of a significant yield spread between Western and Eastern Europe. Skanska has relased a new report, focuing on investment opportunities in the CEE region.

Before the global economic crisis the financial sector dominated the Budapest office market, banks leased the greatest number of new offices and impressive new headquarters were built for them. By now the situation has changed: the biggest players are from the ICT (information and communication technology) sector in Budapest, leading companies are building new headquarters, and the globally influential Hungarian companies are moving into larger and larger offices.

At the end of June 2016 total modern warehouse stock in Poland stood at 10,500,000 sqm. Occupier and developer activity is expected to continue its strong momentum, as revealed by Cushman & Wakefield in its Polish Industrial Market Q2 2016 report.

Sixteen office buildings have been completed in Warsaw in the first half of 2016, totalling 350,000 sqm. 100,000 sqm is scheduled for completion in H2 2016, which will bring the annual supply to a new record high of 450,000 sqm. Cushman & Wakefield has published its Property Times report on the Warsaw office market for H1 2016.

Investment into Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (excluding Russia) for H1 2016 registered a substantial increase (59%) compared to same period of last year, surpassing €5 billion. Expectations are that for the entire year, investment volumes will reach and exceed the record volumes of 2015 with all CEE countries expected to perform strongly, says CBRE.

Prologis has announced its second quarter activity in Central and Eastern Europe. The company leased more than 400,000 square metres of distribution space, an increase of more than 7 percent over the same period last year. Demand continues to be driven by reconfiguration of the supply chain and e-commerce.

At the end of the H1 the total supply in the nine major markets in Poland reached 8.6 million sqm. Developers completed a record amount of modern office space – almost 572,000 sqm. Over 1.4 million sqm of office space is under construction and the capital accounts for 609,000 sqm of new offices. The vacancy rate for Poland is 13.4 percent according to Colliers’ report „Market insights | Office market H1 2016“.

Immofinanz recorded net profit of EUR -390.4 million for the 2015/16 financial year (2014/15: EUR -376.6 million). The year-on-year decline resulted primarily from EUR -469.8 million of negative effects from the foreign exchange-adjusted valuation of the Russian portfolio and from a decrease in rental income to EUR 314.5 million (2014/15: EUR 385.6 million) which was caused by temporary rent reductions in Moscow and the planned sale of properties.

An expanding BPO/SSC sector does not just boost the economy but the construction market as well. Investment funds and real estate agencies point out that in CEE there is still a need for prime offices, shopping centers and logistics infrastructure. Skanska, JLL and Dentons, in cooperation with ABSL have published their latest CEE Investment Report 2016: Mission to Outperform.

The latest Colliers report reveals a stable retail property market in Bulgaria during the first half of 2016. Modern shopping centers in Sofia retained the absorption levels from the previous period – nearly 15,000 sqm of leasable space, compared to 16,370 sqm in the second half of 2015. In well-established projects enjoying active demand, this equals to an average share of 4% from the GLA.