CEE investment volume set for record year

Commercial property investment volumes in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) totalled EUR 8.7 bn at the end of November 2011, twice the level registered in the same period in 2010, according to the latest data from CBRE.

Based on the pipeline of deals waiting to be closed till the year-end, 2011 investment turnover could become CEE's third strongest year in history. The year’s total is significantly below the peak achieved in 2007 (EUR 14.6 bn); however, it's already close to the third strongest achieved in 2008 of EUR 9.5 bn.

Jos Tromp, head of CEE Research & Consultancy, CBRE, commented: 'Despite the volatile market sentiment in recent years, CEE has managed to attract a significant amount of capital to be invested in real estate. On the one hand this is to be explained by value-add and opportunistic money flowing to Russia.'

'On the other hand, Poland and the Czech Republic, in particular, are continuing to attract risk-averse investments. It is likely that CEE will keep this ambivalent character into 2012, with one difference compared to recent years: a significantly reduced pipeline under construction which is expected to lead to a further divergence in the performance of prime versus non-prime.'