PropTech Romania which is the first Romanian innovation platform designed for the real estate market, hosted the first European real estate hackathon in Bucharest on 12 and 13 April 2019.

Dedeman has signed a contract for the purchase of The Office in Cluj-Napoca. The sellers are developers NEPI Rockcastle and Ovidiu Sandor. The purchase price has not been disclosed, but it is estimated to be around €100 million.

CTP continues its expansion in Romania. The developer plans to add another 200,000 sqm to its 1 million sqm local portfolio.

The Bucharest office closed Q1 2019 with decent numbers: a gross take-up of 105,000 sqm, out of which the net take-up was 29,000 sqm, and 93,000 sqm of deliveries. Data from Colliers International Romania show that the demand came mostly from IT&C companies, despite the tight labour market.

Up to 750,000 sqm of modern logistics and industrial space could be delivered this year in Romania, which could push the local stock of industrial spaces to over 4 million sqm, according to Dunwell, a real estate consultancy firm that specializes on the industrial segment.

The Palace of the Generala Insurance Company, a historical building in the city centre of Bucharest that served as the headquarters for lender BCR, the local subsidiary of Austrian Erste Bank group, has been put up for sale.

CBRE has taken over the management of the NEPI Rockcastle office portfolio in Bucharest, totalling 70,580 square meters. This is the first time when NEPI Rockcastle outsources the management of the properties. CBRE Romania now manages 770,000 sqm of offices and retail assets.

The modern retail stock in Bucharest remained stable in 2018, at 1.2 million square meters, a level which is 7% higher than in the Central-West region of the country which reached 1.18 million square meters, and twice the corresponding value of the Moldova region which reached 595,000 square meters, according to Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.

The Romanian office market started promising in 2019, given that in the first quarter, approximately 124,500 square meters were leased nationwide, almost 41% more than in the first quarter of last year.

The valuation department of Cushman & Wakefield Echinox has evaluated over 700 properties with a cumulative value of €4 billion in 2018, while estimating an increase of 25% of the valuation volume, potentially reaching the €5 billion threshold during the year.