On the commercial building markets in Central Europe (that is in Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary) in the second quarter of 2014, 754 million euro worth investment transactions were made. It is a 14 per cent increase in comparison with analogous period last year, as Cushman & Wakefield informs. Since the beginning of the year, ca. 2 billion euro were invested in this region, that is 12 per cent more than in the first half of 2013. According to prognoses, the investment volume in the current year may exceed the last year’s.
Poland on top
According to results for the first six months of the current year, Poland still attracts most of the investments out of the countries from Central Europe. Although the transaction volume in Poland in the second quarter of 2014 was lower than in the first three months, there is no suggestion that the attractiveness of the Polish investment market is to be weakened. The reason of a depreciation in value of transactions was the lack of single big transactions such as Rondo 1 or Poznań City Center, which we have been observing in the first part of the year. Nevertheless, there were interesting transactions in every sector of the commercial market in the second quarter of the current year. In the office sector, a great interest of attractive properties outside Warsaw is sustaining, the confirmation of which was the purchase of Cracow Centrum Biurowe Lubicz by Griffin fund – comments Piotr Kaszyński, partner and director of Grupa Rynków Kapitałowych Cushman & Wakefield in Poland. The value of the investment transactions made in Poland in the second quarter totalled 242 million euro altogether.
The highest increase in turnovers was recorded in Czech Republic, in which the improvement of the economic situation has an impact on the new investors inflow. Total turnover volume on the Czech market in the second quarter increased to 340 million euro, in comparison with 108 million euro in the proper period of 2013.
In the first half of 2014, an increased interest in investment funds was registered in Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. In Hungary, this year’s second quarter was the best since 2010, mainly because of the sale of 50 per cent of shares in the Allee shopping mall by ING Real Estate.
Office sector
The office sector was responsible for 42 per cent of total investment transaction volume in the second quarter, which means that it still enjoyed the greatest popularity among investors in Central Europe. The largest transaction in the second quarter in this sector as well as in the whole region of Central Europe was the purchase of the City Tower skyscraper by PPF in Prague.