The value of real estate transactions in Romania totaled EUR180 million in the first quarter of 2016, of which more than half (EUR96 million) came from sales of office projects in capital Bucharest, according to real estate experts of JLL.
Also, industrial and logistic projects attracted over a third of transactions with real estate assets in the first quarter, in the amount of EUR57 million. The rest of transactions targeted retail spaces, totalling EUR28 million. Compared with the same period in 2015, transactions with commercial properties –office industrial, logistics and retail space, rose over 30% in the first quarter of 2016.
According to JLL, some new investors show growing interest in the Romanian real estate market because they are lured by the attractive yields they can obtain compared with other markets in the region, such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
In 2016, Blackstone, one of the world’s largest investment funds, entered Romania, through European Logicor. Silviana Badea, head of Capital Markets JLL Romania, said JLL represented Logicor in acquiring Immofinanz’s portfolio of logistics and industrial projects in Romania, in a Pan-European transaction which also involved assets in Germany and Hungary. Badea also said Romania currently represents an opportunity for investments.
The Logicor-Immofinanz transaction is one of the largest concluded in the first quarter. Other major acquisitions targeted the complete takeover by GTC of office project City Gate from Bluehouse and the acquisition by Alpha Bank of office building Cubic Center, held by Adval Asset Management.
Prime yields on the local market fell by 25 basis points in January-March 2016, reaching 7.5% on the office market and 9% for industrial projects.