Putting the crunch to bed

This year's fair in Cannes confirmed that the CEE property market is coming back to life. There was more optimism in the air this time round. but despite some caution, the general view was that Normality is returning According to the official data from the organisers, the number of participants increased by app. 8 pct to reach over 18,600 this year. The general impression? It seems that most representatives of the sector now just want to put the credit crunch behind them. Perhaps this is why there were considerably fewer parties but more business meetings and serious talks. These are expected to bear physical fruit in the form of projects and transactions. And apart from a few exceptions, the projects on show were clearly much better suited to the present reality of the market. The extravangant visions of the boom period - such as huge skyscrapers or multifunctional districts - had gone. As one of the participants commented, the dreamers and fantasists had simply stayed at home. This