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.

AFI Europe Romania will soon start works on the second phase of the €37 million AFI Tech Park Business Campus project in Bucharest.

Cushman & Wakefield Echinox has been appointed to manage the Ethos office building, situated in the Floreasca area of Bucharest. This is the second mandate for the management of an office building by C&W Echinox in 2019.

In 2018 Globalworth registered an increase of 36% in portfolio value compared to 2017, reaching €2.5 billion, split 51% in Romania and 49% in Poland. Also, during last year, the gross leasable area of the company’s combined portfolio grew with over 250,000 sqm to 1 million sqm. Following the dynamic expansion in Poland and the new developments in Romania, Globalworth’s net operating income (NOI) noted an impressive increase by over 160% and exceeded €133 million.

BNP Paribas Real Estate Romania has signed Property Management and Exclusive Leasing mandates for Hexagon Offices, a Class A office building located in one of the emerging office locations in the city of Cluj Napoca, owned by KÉSZ International Romania. The office building is expected to be completed in June 2019.

According to the latest European hotels trend report by Savills, emerging European tourist cities such as Dublin, Lisbon and Madrid and alternative operating structures such as non-leased operating structures offer higher yielding opportunities for those investors willing to take on more risk.