A growing number of international investors have been targeting retail real estate opportunities in Central and Eastern in recent years and the competition is really heating up, a PropertyEU investment briefing hosted at the Immofinanz stand at the Mapic real estate fair in Cannes heard on Thursday.
‘We’re seeing some strong competition from South African and Israeli investors,’ noted Phillipp Gansch, head of development at Vienna-listed Immofinanz. ‘It’s becoming quite tough in some markets like Poland to find good locations. Prices are at a really different level than two years ago. Sometimes we have to say no to a deal.’
Poland still has some great opportunities, he noted, but added his company was looking beyond the capital Warsaw for new land plots for its StopShop retail park concept. The same applies to Bucharest, the capital of Romania. As a result, Immofinanz is looking to countries like Serbia and Montenegro, he noted.
‘The main challenge is to find the right plots, not the right cities. We’re experiencing really high competition for both land plots and assets that fit into our asset management strategies. We look at opportunities in a lot of detail. Things are not like they were before the crisis.’
One trend that is affecting investment decisions is the need to be closer to the city centres, he said. Immofinanz recently opened a new StopShop park in Serbia where visitors are able to walk to the scheme. ‘To create a sustainable retail mix for the future for our StopShop model, we need to be moving closer to the city centres. But that will makes it even more difficult in the future to find the right land plots.’
