Nile House, part of the office project River City Prague in Prague 8 – Karlín owned by CA Immo, has received the first Platinum “LEED for Existing Building: Operation and Maintenance” certification in the Czech Republic. JLL´s Property Management team provided all the necessary support, managed the materials for this certification and coordinated the process.

The Central and Eastern European region has achieved a significant improvement in its desirability as a logistics location. 8 sites from the region have successfully made it to the top 20 list of most popular European locations, which is a 100 percent increase since 2013. Prologis VP Laszlo Kemenes (MRICS) analysed the trends that shape the real-estate market in and around Budapest, and talked about the future projects of the company.

Prologis has announced that it has signed a lease agreement with Linemart, a third-party logistics provider owned by Shenzhen Sailvan Network, a China-based e-commerce company, for 18,166 square metres of distribution space at Prologis Park Prague-Airport DC1. The transaction was facilitated by 108 Agency.

After many long years Budapest once again had a booth at the world’s most important real estate expo, MIPIM. With this, Budapest at least partially returned to the investor marker, since traditionally every significant Central European city is represented by a booth. The Hungarian capital has not quite attained the investor attention that for example Warsaw has, but investor sentiment towards the Hungarian property market has improved noticeably recently, and this can be experienced in Cannes too.

According to CBRE’s 2016 EMEA Investor Intentions Survey almost half (48%) of all surveyed expect their purchasing activity to be higher than last year, compared with just 15% who expect to be less active buyers. 43% also expect their selling activity to increase, indicating a buoyant and liquid real estate investment market for the region in 2016.

According to CBRE’s ‘CEE Market Outlook’ 2016 is set to be a solid year on the back of an exceptional 2015 which saw records broken in almost every real estate sector. Growth will be a key theme in the region in 2016 as economic recovery happens at a quicker pace than in Western European countries.

South African Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Redefine Properties is significantly broadening its offshore footprint via an initial 75% investment into Echo Investment’s 1.2 billion euro commercial platform comprising 18 properties in Poland.

Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated announced that it is separating the roles of President and Chief Executive Officer and that Christian Ulbrich, currently CEO for the EMEA region, will become President of JLL. Colin Dyer will retain the role of CEO and continue to guide the firm’s global strategy, with a particular emphasis on IT and data strategies, and oversee LaSalle Investment Management as well as the firm’s finance, human resources, legal and marketing functions. Additionally, Guy Grainger, currently UK Chief Executive, will succeed Ulbrich as EMEA CEO, and Chris Ireland will become UK Chief Executive. All changes are effective June 1, 2016.

According to the RICS Commercial Property Monitor for Q4 2015 most countries in Central and Eastern Europe can expect relatively strong economic growth and remarkable improvements in their commercial property markets. Both, the Occupier Sentiment Index (OSI) and the Investment Sentiment Index (ISI) registered a positive value across all sectors in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania.

In 2015 Skanska Commercial Development Europe signed final sale agreements for eleven office buildings located in three Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, achieving a total transaction volume of nearly 500 mln EUR for the year. Skanska is now compiling its sales portfolio for 2016 and continues to purchase land for new development projects.