Next year will be better

The investment volume so far this year in the Visegrád countries comes to EUR 2.5 bln. Around EUR 1.4 bln of these deals were closed on the Polish market, under EUR 700 mln in the Czech Republic and EUR 160–170 mln each in Slovakia and Hungary. Apart from the preliminary agreement for Silesia City Center in Katowice and the sale of 50 pct of one of Prologis’ portfolios, no spectacular deals have taken place. “Several large transactions can be expected on the retail, office and warehouse markets by the end of the year. The current value of the preliminary agreements signed is in Poland is around EUR 1.3 bln – including the sale of the centre in Katowice. About 75 pct of this total has been invested in the retail market. Therefore, in Poland the year is likely to close with a volume of app. EUR 3 bln. Continued high interest in the Polish property market can be expected in 2014. Compared with Europe, Poland is still a very attractive market, which is attracting new players who have also been encouraged by low entry barriers. But diversification among investors is, however, still missing – the market is still dominated by a limited group of entities. The opportunist projects that are gradually appearing are an interesting element, but this is just the beginning of that road,” says Tomasz Puch, head of the office and warehouse section of the investment department at Jones Lang LaSalle. According to data published by Savills Polska, the Polish market was still dominated by international buyers in Q3 2013. Buyers from the US were responsible for 29.5 pct of the transaction volume, while second place was taken by domestic buyers (28 pct), followed by German investors (25 pct).