The Váci Road office corridor, the central business district (CBD) and the inner quarters of Pest are the most significant office locations in Budapest. The Budapest office of CBRE has synchronized its office market database with the metro lines and stations to highlight the current status of the city’s office market.

Smart buildings and smart infrastructure are essential parts of a liveable, sustainable, future-proof and truly smart city, something that population centres all over the world aspire to be. Things have started going in the right direction but the Hungarian capital still has a long way to go before it can establish itself as a smart city. The vision of Budapest as smart city, officially approved by the City Council, was presented at the latest Green Talk, organised by RICS and the Hungary Green Building Council (HuGBC).

CTP signed several new leases in Hungary in the first quarter of 2017 which means that construction is now underway in four different locations in the Transdanubia region. The real estate developer, present in Hungary since early 2016, now manages an industrial property portfolio of about 300,000 sqm. 

Berlin-based developer Bischoff & Compagnons is to start a new office development, named Alphagon, in the South Buda area of Budapest. CBRE has been commissioned with the leasing of the property.

Futureal Group sold its Skypark office building to the OTP Prime Property Investment Fund. The recently closed transaction increased the value of the fund’s property portfolio to over HUF40 billion. The complex, with 25,000 square meters of GLA, is located at the Corvin Promenade mixed use project in the center of Budapest and was designed to meet the needs of technology and R&D companies.

Skanska helps introduce the WELL Building Standard (WELL) to the market of Central and Eastern Europe. WELL is the preeminent building standard to focus on enhancing people’s health and well-being through the built environment. Spark is one of the first office buildings to pursue WELL Certification in Poland. Skanska will also apply for certification for its projects developed in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania.

Wing is transforming the Material Center building in Budapest, which until now has operated as a shopping mall, into an office building. The building, which has an area of over 20,000 square metres, will be fully converted and renovated to a high standard, to be reborn as the Skylight City office centre. The preparatory works have already begun, and offices are already available for rental in the building.

Demand continues to be strong on the Budapest office market and with new supply still limited the vacancy rate decreased further in Q1 2017. It now stands at 9.2% which is the lowest rate on record. The Budapest Research Forum published its newest figures.

M7 Real Estate announced that its first Central European fund for third party investors, M7 Central European Real Estate Fund I (M7 CEREF I), has now completed its final close, reaching its target raise of €60 million of investor capital. This follows investor commitments of more than €35 million at its first close in October 2016.

2016’s record-breaking €12.2 billion investment in the real estate sector in the CEE region is likely to be surpassed in 2017 – this is according to CEE Real Estate Investment Compass 2017 published by Colliers International and CMS. The sources of investment flows into the CEE region are also expected to remain diverse in 2017, with Asian and CEE investors becoming increasingly active in the real estate market.