In the first quarter of 2023, the total office stock in Bratislava represented 2.02 million sqm. Compared to the previous quarter, the prime rent rose to the level of €17.5/sqm/month, the Bratislava Research Forum reports.

The planned Highest Construction Office (Nejvyšší stavební úřad) and the system of regional construction offices subordinate to it will not be established in the Czech Republic. The construction authorities will remain within the municipalities, the Czech News Agency (ČTK) reports.

Analysts at Bencont Investments have recorded sales of only 197 apartments in new buildings in Bratislava in Q1 2023. According to them, the unit price of available apartments remained at €4,900/sqm. In Q1, the supply consisted of as many as 3,229 vacant apartments in new buildings. Realisation prices increased by 20% year-on-year, but there was a 1.43% quarter-on-quarter decrease. Q1 2023 was thus still marked by weakening demand, according to the quarterly real estate market analysis of Bencont.

The Czech industrial and logistics market reached the 11 million sqm mark at the end of the first quarter of 2023. It has grown by more than 1 million sqm over the past 12 months. During Q1 2023, a total of 217,900 sqm of new industrial space was completed, representing an increase of 25 % quarter-on-quarter (Q4 2022 vs. Q1 2023). Approximately 1.23 million sqm of industrial space is currently under construction, 34 % of which is being built on a speculative basis. Despite the high volume of new completions, the vacancy rate remains low, at the level of 1.4 %, JLL reports.

Property Forum is happy to announce the third edition of its annual listing of the 50 most influential people on the Romanian market. To access the publication, click here.

Total transaction volume in the first quarter in Belgrade was €537 million, which represents a decrease of around 5 % compared to the overall amount of €563 million which was registered in the first quarter of 2022, but the overall amount spent is still extremely high, real estate agency Cordon reports.

High inflation and rising interest rates seem to have bitten in overall consumption. And although Serbia is likely to avoid recession in the short run, its real GDP growth is estimated to be a moderate 2%-4% this year and next with a downside risk being the looming recession in the EU. The rental housing market has been supported by the Russian and Ukrainian citizens settling down in Serbia, keeping rent rates high. Housing construction is still strong and although the volumes in building construction are already consolidating, big infrastructure projects could sustain civil engineering on all-high levels in the mid-term, according to Dejan Krajinović (Beobuild Core d.o.o.) at EECFA which conducts research on the construction markets of 8 Eastern-European countries, including Serbia.

The Prague office market has experienced a decline in the construction of new office buildings over the last three quarters which has also been reflected in a decline in speculative construction. Whereas a year ago almost 80% of offices under construction did not have a secure tenant, this share has now fallen to 52%. Tenants were looking for office space in established office locations in the vicinity of Karlín in Prague 8 and Pankrác in Prague 4 in the first quarter. A quarterly analysis by international consultancy JLL shows that 7.5% of modern office space in Prague is currently vacant, which corresponds to 289,100 sqm of space. However, the supply of so-called subleases, which are not included in the official vacancy register, is also growing. According to JLL's latest analysis, there could be around 80,000 sqm of sublease space.

In Q4 2022, Hungarian residential property prices fell by 3.6% compared to the previous quarter. The Central Bank of Hungary (MNB) reports the sharpest decline was seen in smaller municipalities.

CEE, much like the wider European market, continues to experience subdued market sentiment, while Romania remains a positive light in the region, the RICS Commercial Property Monitor for Q1 2023 reveals.