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.

With over 20 million sqm of residential and commercial space destroyed across Ukraine during the past seven months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the country will need to be rebuilt on a large scale. It creates attractive opportunities for property developers and investors but also requires the proper planning and legal framework to ensure that the new urban environment across Ukraine is liveable, financially viable, and safe to invest in. The consequences of the Russia-inflicted war in Ukraine for the real estate sector was one of the central topics discussed at Expo Real on 4-6 October 2022 in Munich.

According to CBRE Ukraine, the warehouse and logistics segment demonstrated higher resilience than the rest of the commercial real estate market against the backdrop of military aggression in Ukraine. However, it suffered large-scale destruction from rocket attacks on Kyiv and the Kyiv region. Iryna Nastych summarised the situation in an article prepared by the Ukrainian Real Estate Club for Property Forum.

In 2022, Ukraine will participate in Expo Real for the first time. The event will host a pavilion with an area of ​​132 sqm dedicated to Rebuilding Ukraine. The organizing partner of the stand is Invest in Projects, a global promoter of the Ukrainian real estate industry.

As of summer 2022, leasing activity in the Kyiv office market was near a standstill and primarily driven by office optimization, as well as lease renewals and renegotiations of existing leases, according to the latest research of CBRE Ukraine. Whereas, as of the beginning of June, we observed a slight recovery in the level of office occupancy by employees who continued to work or who returned to Kyiv. Thus, typical office attendance among corporate occupiers was ca. 10% with many tenants in IT, high tech & telecommunications, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, agriculture, FMCG and industrial sectors planning to increase occupancy to 15%.

During five months of war in Ukraine, millions of square meters of housing, production facilities, and infrastructure were destroyed. To speed up the recovery, Ukrainian legislation governing urban planning was simplified. Alexandra Fedotova, Partner, Attorney and Head of Ader Haber's real estate and construction practice and the Board Member of the Charity Fund Housing For IDP, reviewed the changes in an article prepared by the Ukrainian Real Estate Club for Property Forum.

The Ukrainian retail industry together with the rest of the country is going through one of the most alarming stages in its history. Shopping malls are increasingly becoming targets for enemy fire. It is difficult to estimate the financial losses caused by the Russian army as the situation is constantly changing. According to the Ukrainian Council of Shopping Centres (UCSC) the losses incurred by the shopping mall industry as a result of the aggression amount to $9.8 billion. This calculation includes direct and indirect losses, writes Katy Klyueva in an article prepared by the Ukrainian Real Estate Club for Property Forum.

In 2022, Expo Real is organizing a networking and information pavilion with 132 sqm dedicated to Ukraine, its cities, real estate players and projects.

Currently, the primary residential real estate market in Ukraine is experiencing an increase in the cost of construction as the cost of materials and labour have increased several times. A large part of domestic producers of building materials cannot work because they have suffered losses of production capacity. Import substitution, which should fill the shortage of materials, is often not a solution because of the high costs and logistics problems. Iryna Nastych summarised the situation in an article prepared by the Ukrainian Real Estate Club for Property Forum.

The Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Teresa Czerwińska and the acting Managing Director of EIB Global, Markus Berndt, spoke at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano and shared the EIB’s views on Ukraine’s recovery. They reaffirmed the EU Bank's steadfast position on the importance and urgency of investing in Ukraine's European future, even as fighting continues across the country. Emphasising its support for the recovery plan presented at the conference, the EIB offered a new instrument, the EU-Ukraine Gateway Trust Fund. This financing instrument could support Ukraine’s early and long-term recovery and the country’s journey towards EU membership.