The increase of VAT to 9% will lead to a price increase, while buyers have a growing interest in green homes, concluded speakers of the residential panel of SEE Property Forum 2023, held in Bucharest recently.

At €3.2 billion for Q1-Q3 2023, CEE investment activity is at a 10+ year low (down 59% year-on-year). The pricing gap between buyers’ and sellers' expectations remains a significant barrier to seeing volumes return to the 5 and 10-year average levels of €10-11 billion. However, real estate fundamentals in CEE remain fairly robust.  Lower levels of vacancy are being recorded and some good levels of rental growth in certain sectors have been noted, reveals Colliers in its latest report.

Slovakia’s economy surpassed expectations in H1 2023 with the automotive industry leading the charge. The industrial sector flourishes with robust take-up and diversified supply and there is also a continuous rise in rents in all submarkets. Resilient take-up but robust new supply caused rising vacancy, stabilized fit-out costs, rising rents and yields. Cushman & Wakefield published its Marketbeat Analysis for Q3 2023. 

Half of the hotel investors in CEE already address ESG in their transaction due diligence, and 40% are in the process of including it, says Cushman & Wakefield in their newest report.

Real estate investments continue despite the slowdown of the economy, with offices and industrial mentioned as some of the segments seeing increased demand and higher deal volumes, concluded speakers of the 2024 outlook panel hosted at the SEE Property Forum 2023 conference in Bucharest.

The third quarter of the year has slowed down in terms of investment activity in comparison with the previous quarter. Namely, the most sought-after segments have been office schemes and retail parks. Both domestic and foreign investors have been active, with a slightly higher provision of international capital since the beginning of the year, CBRE SEE reports.

Q3 2023 did not bring much positive news from the Prague office market. Since Q2 2022, no office buildings have been launched on the Prague real estate market and the future does not look promising either, according to the latest analysis by Prague Research Forum. 

Property Forum is excited to announce the winners of its annual SEE Property Forum Awards for 2023. The winners of each category were selected from our shortlist by the jury committee, comprising the leading players of the Romanian real estate industry. The awards, celebrating the best projects, most impactful transactions and most inspiring personalities of the Romanian market, were presented at our awards gala in Bucharest last night, part of the annual SEE Property Forum conference.

The modern industrial stock reached almost 11.5 million sqm, as nearly 183,000 sqm of new space was delivered to the Czech market in Q3 2023. Demand for industrial space slowed down in Q3 2023 reaching only 181,700 sqm. Speculative development slightly increased to 41% of the over 1.4 million sqm currently under construction, continuing the trend of the previous three quarters. The vacancy rate decreased by 22 basis points compared to the previous quarter, and remained low at 1.5% Prague’s average highest achievable rent has remained stable, reaching around €7.50-7.70 per sqm per month, the Industrial Research Forum (IRF) reports. 

Bratislava's residential new building market continued in stagnation during the period of Q3 2023. Sales remained at the same low level as in the previous two quarters, meaning fewer than 200 apartments were sold. The supply of new apartments increased only slightly, with a similarly slow rise in price to €5,100/sqm incl. VAT. The price increase is due to the arrival of new apartments in the higher housing segment while the average price of existing projects remains unchanged, reported analysts from Bencont Investments.