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COVID-19 is going away very slowly, which is putting pressure on the digitization of residential sales. Solutions that enable digital signatures, online viewings and even online selling are becoming necessary tools for residential developers, says Jakub Licak, Business Development Manager at CEE-based proptech Realpad, who’s responsible for the company's international expansion in Romania and Bulgaria. He talked to Property Forum about his experiences on the Romanian market and discussed Realpad’s expansion strategy.

Developer AFI Europe completed the second phase of the construction of the Skyline Belgrade mixed-use project, a 3-story building, totalling over 3,800 sqm of prime office and retail space.

Office space will continue to shape the company culture and will have a great impact on the collaboration process and the dynamic of decision-making, says Tanya Kosseva-Boshova MRICS, Managing Partner of Park Lane Developments who talked to Property Forum about the company’s development plans and shared her expectations about the future of offices.

The activity on the Bulgarian real estate market was strongly affected by the COVID-19 crisis, but we saw more resilience for the investment and industrial sectors which registered both an increase during the last year. For 2021, the forecasts are still positive for the investment property market and for the industrial development sector, according to the Sofia City Report H2 2020, released by JLL Romania with the support of IPC Partners Bulgaria.

CTP has completed the acquisition of 27.5 hectares of land close to Belgrade city centre and is moving plans forward to develop CTPark Belgrade Centre, which will become Serbia’s largest logistics and technology facility to date with over 130,000 sqm of gross lettable area. The new CTPark will be strategically located 6 km from Belgrade’s city centre, 2 km from New Belgrade, and 5 km from Airport Belgrade.  

Lidl Serbia plans to start the construction of a new, 60,000 sqm logistics canter in Lapovo, a city located approximately halfway between Belgrade and Nis on the A1 highway, in the coming months, local media reports.

Despite the slowdown in activity in the first half of 2020 due to COVID-19 and the earthquake that hit Zagreb in April, the Croatian capital’s office market was very active in 2020 with total leasing activity amounting to 55,000 sqm, according to a market report by Cushman & Wakefield | CBS International Croatia.

Romania-based project management company Optim PM has opened a branch in Belgrade to expand its services on the Southeast European real estate market.

The Q4 2020 results of the RICS Global Commercial Property Monitor continue to point to a challenging backdrop across Europe. Both the office and retail sectors remain under significant pressure, with demand still falling sharply amid the difficult economic climate induced by the pandemic. On a brighter note, supported by structural tailwinds, the industrial sector continues to defy this downbeat overall assessment, prompting respondents to upgrade expectations for rental and capital value growth.

Swedish furniture group Ikea is set to open its first store in Slovenia in Ljubljana today. To ensure a safe shopping experience and avert long queues in front of the store, Ikea has mandated advanced bookings for in-person shopping in the first weeks following the opening. The number of visitors is capped at 700 with Ikea estimating that they will spend roughly two hours on average browsing around the store.