A winning streak or simply good spin?

EWA ANDRZEJEWSKA
Editor

Ialready have the full picture", one says. "That's nothing, this is just the frame of the picture", replies the other. As I think about the situation on the property market just before the industry meeting in Cannes this March, I recall this exchange of banter between the two friends, played by the famous and well-liked duo of Artur Barciś and Cezary Żak, in a production of Neil Simon's 'The Odd Couple', staged in one of Warsaw's theatres. We can also get the whole picture in our sector by carefully examining all the factors, such as the post-crisis strategies being implemented by companies operating on the real estate market, in the banking sector and by state institutions. Only then might we finally be in a position to assess the situation.  All through last year Poland enjoyed some great press abroad. And in the rest of credit-crunched Europe, the image of a green island in the midst of a sea of countries marked red, proved highly appealing to both the imaginations and the pockets of investors. Their eyes turned eagerly to the country of the Vistula and away, for example, from those of the Danube and the Dâmboviţa. But is our winning streak now coming to an end? Economists are still insisting that it is not worth heeding some of the gloomy prognostications of a few analysts. This is confirmed by Ewa Szafrańska-Mądry, who represents Spanish fund Azora International, which is continuing to buy properties in Poland (and which we write about in the article entitled ?When the magic fades') and Paul Gheysens, the founder of Belgian developer Ghelamco Group, who despite picking out Asia and Latin America as regions with great potential, at the same time is also planning to strengthen the position of the company on the Vistula and on the Oder river, i.e. in Wrocław, as well as in the other regional cities of the countries where the company is already present.