A heart and soul in recovery mode

Is the number of your recent transactions evidence that investors have finally got over the shock of the pandemic? Martin Erbe, the head of real estate finance international clients for Germany, the CEE region and the Benelux, REF Central, Helaba: The Helaba CEE team – headed by Georg Blaschke – was busy throughout 2020 and very active in Q4, closing financing deals for Lixa, Chmielna 89 and the T-Mobile building in Warsaw as well as Churchill Square in Prague. All these transactions clearly indicate that there’s still a lot of ongoing interest in the two major CEE markets. Following the outbreak of the pandemic, some investors certainly became rather cautious and some transactions were put on hold or even stopped. We saw the renegotiation of prices and other terms. But investor optimism soon returned – especially for core and quality buildings. Have investors’ preferences changed as a result of the pandemic? Which real estate sectors have become more at