The first half of the year on the investment market was marked by the recovery of ground lost during the pandemic, but it was also overshadowed by the conflict in Ukraine. Despite this, the total transaction volume in this period approached EUR 3 bln and there’s a good chance that for the entire year EUR 5 bln will be transacted. Capital is flowing in, developers are counting their profits, but they are keeping an anxious eye on central bank measures to tackle inflation and the other on the horizon, where the spectre of recession is looming ever larger – not just for Poland, but for the global economy as a whole.

Office buildings are back in vogue – they’ve been changing hands for record sums, employees are returning en masse, while tenants are looking for new space to expand into. Things are getting even hotter due to the fall in the number of new constructions, the imminent supply gap, the increased project financing costs, the rising prices of construction materials and labour, as well as the additional demand from Ukrainian companies relocating to Poland. Since getting your hands on plots in the centres of large cities can now only happen in your dreams, campus projects outside city centres and mixed-use projects with office space are back in favour. Is the new reality actually just the return of the old?

Home prices on the primary market have been skyrocketing, while banks are turning off the credit taps, so developers have been tightening their cooperation with institutional investors. These funds are investing more millions than ever in packages of student rooms and rented flats and, which are also being rented by clients flooding in from Ukraine. Holiday apartments, meanwhile, are declining in popularity as they can no longer guarantee profit or even a hedge against inflation. The hotel sector, however, has been gradually reviving – and in recent months there have been several interesting debuts in Poland.

There are no signs of any waning in the popularity of ESG, as the concept is now even being embraced by smaller companies and towns, as well as by other sectors of the market. Hardly a week goes by without one of the bigger players publishing a report or ESG strategy, or committing to achieving zero emissions over the next few years. However, there are concerns that combining so many activities in so many different fields under one banner is impractical and absurd, or even impossible, and besides, it can provide a convenient screen for greenwashing.

Retail parks continue to set the pace in this sector, as they spring up across the country like mushrooms after the rain, rapidly securing both tenants and buyers. It’s therefore not surprising that luxury brands and larger chains are increasingly featuring in these centres. Large shopping malls, meanwhile, have not allowed themselves to be overtaken by e-commerce and are now coexisting in greater harmony with it. The retail sector has also been given a boost by the revival in the popularity of high streets and the growth in new mixed-use complexes with shopping space. The trend is also taking off for the ‘15-minute city’ – a concept that is being embraced by retail, office and residential developers alike.

The boom in the industrial, logistics and warehouse sector continues, although the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have turned supply chains upside-down as well as the situation on the development market and investors’ expectations. The pace is now being set by nearshoring and the unflagging popularity of e-commerce, while ESG implementation has been taking an increasingly prominent role. But a new trend is also emerging on this market – ‘friendshoring’, that is, establishing a network of suppliers from countries that cooperate with each other politically and militarily. Could this offset the impact of the looming recession?