The investment markets of Central and Eastern Europe are not in a particularly good situation. According to CBRE, the consulting company in the real estate sector, investment activity in CEE countries in the first half of 2012 decreased by 60 per cent in comparison with the parallel perion of the last year. At the same time, 83 per cent of all the transactions took place in Poland and Russia.
The total amount of the transactions concluded in CEE in the first half of 2012 came to about 2,1 billion EUR, from which as much as 854 mln EUR in Poland. As Przemysław Felicki, CBRE, comments, Together with France, Germany and Great Britain, the Polish market is mentioned most often by investors as the area of their interest. In our market, there are active investment funds from Germany, and investors from Great Britain and Spain, as well as local business subjects. In the current year, however, Poland cannot achieve the volume of transactions which we noted in 2011, that is 2,5 billion euro. At the same time, one must bear in mind that last year, Poland noted the third result in the history of our investment market.
The sale of the Golden Terraces (Złote Tarasy) in Warsaw, belonging to ING Real Estate Development, to the company Axa Reim was the largest investment transaction. The contract amounted to 475 mln EUR. The biggest transaction in the Polish office market in the first half of 2012 was the sale of Harmony Office Center II by Eko Park S.A. to the Azora company; the transaction amounted to 54 mln EUR.
Can the poor situation in the CEE region improve in the near future? As Jos Tromp, CBRE, says, In the nearest future, we do not expect the solution of problems in the eurozone, so the negative impact of these turbulences on the bank sector will drag on. Consequently, in the real estate market, there will be less available capital intended for real estate investment in Central and Eastern Europe.