The volume invested in real estate assets in Romania, Poland, and Slovakia increased in 2021, while the Czech and Hungarian markets experienced a decline compared to 2020, according to data from real estate consulting firm Cushman & Wakefield Echinox, quoted by Business-Review.eu.
At the regional level, total transaction volumes reached EUR 9.98 billion, a 4.3 percent decrease from the previous year. The Polish market registered a growth of 8.3 percent, while the transacted volume in Slovakia was 54.2 percent higher in 2021 than in the previous year. On the other hand, the Czech Republic recorded a 36 percent drop in transactions pertaining to income-producing assets, while the volume in Hungary declined by 18.2 percent.
In Romania, 54 transactions with real estate assets were completed last year, twice the number recorded in 2020, with the total investment volume reaching EUR 916 million, up 0.2 percent, according to the Romania Investment Marketbeat report.
After a first semester in which the investment volume was below the level registered in the same period of 2020, the market strongly recovered in H2 2021, with transactions totaling EUR 618 million, an increase of more than 100 percent when compared with the first six months of the year.
In terms of asset classes, most transactions involved logistics and industrial premises—around 40 percent of the total (21)—followed by retail properties (13). Despite a smaller number of assets transacted, the 8 office buildings that changed their owners in 2021 had a 44 percent market share of the total volume (EUR 402 million), followed by the industrial segment (30 percent share) and retail (20 percent).
“Investors’ interest in real estate assets remained at a high level in 2021 amid a relative re-balancing of the relationship between landlords and tenants, an aspect that is meant to ensure a stable financial flow for investors. A high-potential part of the market are sale & lease-back transactions, as the owners of various businesses will benefit from such deals if they are able to finance their core businesses by disposing of their real estate portfolios. In 2022, we can expect new record deals, which could contribute to exceeding the 1 billion euro transactional volume threshold,” said Cristi Moga, Head of Capital Markets at Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.
The largest transactions in terms of volume were Louis Delhaize’s (Cora) sale and leaseback of its six commercial galleries in Romania and Supernova and Atenor Group’s disposal of the Hermes Business Campus (75,000 sqm GLA) office project in Bucharest to Adventum Group, with this transaction marking the latter’s entrance on the Romanian real estate market. CTP (the largest owner of industrial and logistics spaces in the country) strengthened its position by completing four transactions during the year, totaling EUR 170 million.
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