Hospitality group Accor has signed 47 properties in Eastern Europe and the ‘New East’ in 2022, going as far as Georgia and Kazakhstan for a total of 5,476 rooms. 

The entire Revolucija office building, developed by Granit Invest, with more than 10,000 square meters of office, retail and garage space, was leased to one company as a tenant, which was advised by CBRE South Eastern Europe.

Slovak developer Corwin has gained the final building permit for its Ljubljana office project Vilharia. Slovenia's large office complex, which will be built on the brownfield area, is now set to start construction at the beginning of 2023. It will bring 36,000 sqm of prime office space into the centre of the Slovenian capital.

UDI Group, an international development group with Czech roots, is planning a massive construction in Belgrade, Serbia. It plans to build the Duga project with 2,320 apartments and 40,000 sqm of offices on the site of a former factory for almost €392 million. Construction is expected to start next year, UDI Group reported.

Czech real estate fund Investika has decided to take another step in diversifying its real estate portfolio. Its latest acquisitions are luxury properties in Croatia for short-term rentals.

The last two years marked steep growth for the Slovak developer Corwin. With their four new acquisitions, they have grown to be the largest developer in Ljubljana and have sold their flagship project Blumental as one of the largest transactions of the year in Bratislava. In 2022, Corwin also published its first sustainability report.

The EECFA 2022 Winter Construction Forecast Report has been released and yet another downward revision characterizes the forecast for both Southeast Europe and Eastern Europe. Southeast Europe could see shrinkage on the horizon. This, however, comes after a great period of construction between 2016 and 2021, so the market is foreseen to come down from a peak level. In this respect, the 3% decline until 2024 is no drama, in EECFA’s view. The drama is in East Europe where the peak was reached in 2018 and the market was around 10% below that peak level even before the Ukraine war began. Since then, EECFA has paused issuing forecasts in Ukraine and a status report has been prepared. Without Ukraine, the region is expected to reach its bottom in 2023.

For a long time, the logistics and industrial market in Croatia has been overlooked by real estate developers, despite the country’s strategic geographical position, proximity to major European markets and developed, high-quality road network, as well as direct access to sea routes. Recent project completions and commencements, with a strong pipeline and the arrival of international developers, suggest that winds are changing, and Croatia could become a very attractive logistics market.

GTC announced that Ziv Gigi has been promoted to Executive Director for the Southeast Europe region. In his new role, he will be responsible for all operations of the office sector in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Croatia. He will be in charge of executing the company's strategy and development plan, as well as all of its operational activities, including leasing and asset management. Ziv Gigi’s promotion is part of the company’s greater transformation to strengthen its country leadership to be more responsive to opportunities and challenges in local markets.

Serbia’s real estate market experienced record demand for office, logistics and residential space this year and this growth trend will continue in 2023. Banks will be somewhat stricter in terms of granting loans and financing conditions will tighten but the overall outlook is still positive, according to the speakers of the investment and financing panel of Balkans Property Forum 2022, organised last week in Belgrade.