Flexible friends

The 18th Annual Construction and Property Conference, which preceded the Eurobuild Awards gala on December 6th, was focused on summarising the most important events on the property market as a whole. Every year we take a look at each of the sectors: from the construction industry, through the residential, office, retail and warehouse sectors, to investment. Last year was not an easy one. When announcing the conference we wrote: "The construction and real estate market is going through a testing time. Nothing is certain, and the usual measures are proving to be ineffective." Indeed. The word that was most often used by the conference participants was flexibility: flexibility in negotiations with clients and banks as being the key to success in difficult times.How do things now appear on the individual markets? The construction sector is going through something of a traumatic period. Around 200 companies went bankrupt in the first three quarters of 2012 - 70 pct more than a year earlier.