CBRE: Domestic real estate transactions more than tripled in 2014

The value of domestic real estate deals boosted last year when the transactions including office, retail or industrial properties came to about 1.1 billion euro, an advance by 220 percent compared to 2013 when the reported value was 351 million euro, according to CBRE, reads Mediafax.

A higher growth rate was recorded in Bulgaria where the value of real estate transactions was nearly 30 times higher in 2014 (89 million euro) over 2013 (3 million euro), however, the range of the amounts is much lower.

With this major rise, Romania advances one position in terms of real estate transactions volume among CEE countries, surpassing Slovakia, though ranking only the fourth after Poland, which attracted 2.9 billion euro, Russia (almost 2.3 billion euro), and the Czech Republic (over 1.9 billion euro).

Retail projects accounted for some 40 percent of the reported value, followed by office properties which where subject of 29 percent of the transactions, logistics and industrial spaces (12 percent), while the rest of 8 percent were distressed projects.

Overall, the value of real estate deals in the CEE region was 13 percent smaller in 2014 when stood at 9.8 billion euro affected by the decline registered in Russia where transactions almost halved last year.

Yet, if excluding Russia, the property market in the region saw an improvement in the previous year when grew by 25 percent to 7.7 billion euro triggered by transactions concerning office projects which represented about half of the total value estimated by CBRE. Retail and industrial spaces were almost equally preferred by investors, attracting 1.7 billion euro and 1.6 billion euro, respectively, whereas transactions in the hotel industry totaled 367 million euro as indicates the same source.

Apart from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Russia and the Czech Republic, the CBRE research also covers Croatia, Hungary, Ukraine, Serbia, Slovakia, and the Baltic states.