Coffee with Craig Show – daily CRE news covering the CEE region, Monday, August 22, with Winston Norman, Editor and Chief of EuropaProperty.com.
Rising demand brings optimism to the Polish office market
The Polish office market now has more than 12.6 million sqm of modern office space. Warsaw remains the leader, with the eight major regional markets led by Krakow and Wroclaw not slowing down. Optimism from rising demand is emerging from this market picture says AXI IMMO, summarising the first half of 2022 in the Polish office market.
Jakub Potocki, Senior Consultant, Office Agency, AXI IMMO, commented “We are seeing high demand in Warsaw, resulting in declining vacancy rates in central zones. Among the industries that, from our perspective, are increasing their demand for modern office space are law firms, tax companies, the IT industry, and operators of serviced offices. The growth of the last group is particularly influenced by the increasing number of companies relocating their operations from Ukraine,”
“The key trends worth pointing out for the next few months are that rising demand and limited supply will undoubtedly be reflected in rising rents. Today, estimating how much property owners will raise starting rents for new tenants is difficult,” predicts Bartosz Oleksak, Senior Consultant, Office Agency, AXI IMMO.
Prices for new apartments in Bucharest increase by 10-22%
The asking prices for new apartments in Bucharest continued their upward trend in the second quarter of this year, compared to the same period last year, as revealed by the joint analysis of Premier Estate Management and Imobiliare.ro. The average increases for the mass-market, medium, medium-high, premium and luxury segments are between 10-22 percent.
“Contrary to expectations, prices for apartments are not falling. We attribute this fact both to the construction costs, whose evolution hasn’t yet stabilized and to the increase in the standard of living for most of the population,” explained Andreea Comșa, Managing Director, Premier Estate Management.axi
“Even if certain corrections are inherent in the short term, especially in the mass-market segment, Romania is still among the countries with the most affordable housing in terms of purchasing power,” said Daniel Crainic, Director of Marketing, Imobiliare.ro.
WDP buys logistics park in western Romania
Belgian developer WDP has acquired Arad Business Park, a 42,000 sqm property located in Western Romania. Real estate consultancy firm Colliers brokered the deal.
Arad Business Park currently has an occupancy rate of approximately 90 percent and will be operated by WDP Romania following the transaction. Colliers has managed Arad Business Park since 2014.
According to Colliers, the transaction confirms the interest in small business units and last-mile logistics.
“The acquisition of Arad Business Park by WDP represents an investment into urban logistics as well as into a strategic macro-location in an important industrial cluster, on the border with Hungary and connected through the A1 motorway to the West,” said Robert Miklo, Director Investment Services at Colliers Romania & CEE.
Brand-new last-mile, city logistics facility set for Budapest
A much-needed urban logistics real estate development project is under construction in Budapest. The Faedra22 Park is a light industrial and logistics building that offers more than 14,500 sqm on completion.
The building is expected to be completed in early 2023, the pre-leasing has already started, and is an investment by the Faedra Group, a Hungarian-owned real estate development group. Thanks to its proximity to the city centre, the building is also ideal for last-mile logistics operations.
“We have been monitoring market developments throughout the investment in the industrial park and we believe that our flexible solutions will generate strong interest. The lease negotiations have already started, in which 108 Agency is our partner,” commented Bence Boronkay, Managing Director of Faedra Group.
Panattoni leases 17,000 sqm in Lublin to Stella Pack
Panattoni has leased out 17,000 sqm in Lublin to Stella Pack, one of the largest distributors of chemical cleaning products and a producer of hygiene products. The leasing agreement was brokered by consultancy BNP Paribas Real Estate.
From January 2023, Stella Pack will use 17,000 sqm of new warehouse and production space within Panattoni Park Lublin II.
“Our decision to increase and consolidate our production and warehouse space is yet another milestone in the development of Stella Pack. In this way, we are going to adjust our production and logistic resources to meet the needs of a rapidly changing market,” explains Juliusz Żuławski, Logistics Director, Stella Pack S.A.
“When we started development in Lublin over seven years ago, we saw that both the Lubelskie region and all of Eastern Poland had huge potential that in time would be transformed into interest from tenants,” says Katarzyna Osińska, Development Director from Panattoni.
Panattoni Park Lublin II will eventually comprise three buildings with 84,500 sqm.