Dreaming of high streets

We had an exciting, transaction-filled ending to 2024. What does this tell us about the current state of the market? Monika Kulawińska, capital markets director and head of retail, CBRE: For most of last year, the mantra was ‘stay alive until 2025’; but 2024, even though it started off very slowly indeed, ended with a bang. By the end of the year, many transactions had been closed and investors had once again become active. The first regional transactions also gave us some positive signals, such as the sale of the React office building in Łódź by Echo Investment – and we’ve not been seeing these since the pandemic. But in 2024, the deals were somehow different than previous ones. These involved more value-add products and real estate to be converted. CBRE also closed a deal like this: the Saski Crescent office building in Warsaw. This was sold to CA Immo and which is probably going to be converted into apartments. When it comes to the retail sector, it&rsq