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.

Angelika Cieślowska, President of the Management Board of KB DORACO, one of the largest Polish construction companies, talked to Property Forum about the impact of the war in Ukraine on the construction industry, high prices of energy and raw materials and the possible scenarios of market development.

Savills has presented a preliminary summary of 2022 and predicted key trends for the coming months. The commercial property market in Poland is facing uncertainty and rising prices but remains underpinned by strong fundamentals, which bodes well for the future, reveals Savills.

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.

Build to rent or build to sell? The participants of CEE Property Forum in Vienna were sure that in the current residential market environment of high inflation and rising interest rates, building for PRS purposes is the only valid option.

There are already a lot of long-term plans for rebuilding the country and revitalizing its cities, but businesses face day-to-day challenges. The office market suffered the most but retail is relatively healthy in the Western part of the country, experts informed at a special panel dedicated to the future rebuilding of Ukraine at CEE Property Forum 2022 in Vienna. 

Krzysztof Poznański, Managing Director of the Polish Council of Shopping Centres, has talked to Property Forum about the industry's struggle with the effects of the pandemic, the impact of rising energy prices and double-digit inflation.

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.