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.

Most retailers want to attract customers in-store through omnichannel, while e-commerce is not meeting the expectations of food retailers, concluded speakers in the rediscovering retail panel of CEE Property Forum 2023, held in Vienna last month.

Investors' interest in the construction of retail parks in Serbia has not been declining for several years now. Investors are mostly focused on building new facilities in secondary and tertiary locations. As much as 14% of the total offer of retail parks in Serbia is located in the region of central Serbia. The Šumadija region is attracting more and more attention, so the company Peštan announced the opening of a new retail park in 2025 - Arandjelovac Retail Park. 

According to the State Employment Service, as of September 1, 2023, the number of vacancies in the construction industry exceeded the number of registered unemployed. Representatives of the largest developers in the capital speak of a shortage of workers. Olga Solovei summarised what is happening in the labour market in the construction sector of Ukraine in an article prepared by the Ukrainian Real Estate Club for Property Forum.

According to the preliminary results of the parliamentary elections held in Poland on Sunday, after 2 terms and 8 years of independent rule, Prawo i Spawiedliwość (Law and Justice) will have to hand over power to the opposition. This is certainly good news for foreign investors, who may have feared worsening chaos in law and taxation and, in the longer term, Poland's potential exit from the structures of the European Union.