The Slovak construction market is the smallest among the member countries of the Euroconstruct area. Due to its size, it is significantly more affected by both favourable and unfavourable influences. Overall, the private sector contributes more to construction investment than the public sector. With one exception, civil engineering, where public investment is higher. In residential construction private investment exceeds public. This can be attributed to a widely neglected public rental housing programme in Slovakia, writes Radovan Kostelník from ÚEOS Komercia in his study for the independent organization Euroconstruct that unites research organisations from 19 EU countries.

The demand for office space in Prague increased by 29% quarter-on-quarter for the first quarter of 2021 and by 44% year-on-year. Although the largest transactions of the quarter were lease renegotiations – including Seznam.cz (14,800 sqm) in Palác Křižík in Prague 5 or MSD Czech Republic (6,800 sqm) in Riverview in Prague 5 – the share of newly leased space increased to 58%. The increase in newly leased and pre-leased space indicates confidence and healthy growth of the Prague office market. Despite the fact that leasing activity posted record numbers, the vacancy rate rose by 60 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 8.4%. JLL recorded an increase in vacancy rates in almost all Prague districts, as announced in the last report.

Unlike logistics and retail assets, office buildings received less damage from the war in Ukraine, but it is still impossible to calculate the exact number of losses or destroyed office space. Iryna Nastych summarised the situation in an article prepared by the Ukrainian Real Estate Club for Property Forum.

CPI Property Group reported first-quarter profit growth of 243 percent year-on-year to €381 million (roughly CZK 9.4 billion). It was able to do so thanks to its takeover of Austria's Immofinanz, which owns a number of commercial properties. CPI now owns 76.86 percent of the shares in this Austrian company. As a result, CPI is currently the Central European leader in real estate and is planning further expansion with the Austrian real estate company S Immo, where it now controls 42.6 per cent along with Immofinanz.

Geopolitical and economic challenges are not leaving the commercial real estate market unaffected. But how will these major global changes impact the Czech investment market in 2022? This is the question an expert panel, moderated by Mark Richardson (Colliers), at Prague Property Forum 2022 tried to answer.

According to Newmark Polska, Poland’s total warehouse and industrial stock surpassed the 25 million sqm mark, representing a 16.6% increase in the same period in 2021. New supply in the first three months of this year reached close to 1.3 million sqm, the best quarterly result in the history of the Polish market.

Actual sales prices of real estate in the Slovak Republic reached high growth at the beginning of the year, mainly due to rising sales prices of new houses and flats, the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic announced.

Cushman & Wakefield has released a report summarizing the first quarter of 2022 on the Polish industrial market. According to its data, total warehouse take-up in the first three months of this year reached 1.56 million sqm while the development pipeline hit a record 4.8 million sqm.

According to Savills latest research, over 5.7 million sqm of new office space will be completed in Europe in 2022, of which 49% is currently pre-let. In Warsaw, Savills forecasts that a rebound in demand and an undersupply of new office stock will translate into visibly shrinking availability.

Immofinanz’s like-for-like rental income rose by 4.3% in the first quarter of 20221, the occupancy rate remained high at 94.4%, and FFO 1 before tax was stable at a very good level of €34.4 million. Net profit totalled €72.4 million, compared with a substantial positive effect in the first quarter of the previous year from the revaluation of the stake in S Immo. With an equity ratio of 52.3% and a conservative debt level with a net LTV of 32.7%, Immofinanz has a strong capital foundation.