Warehouses outperform this year: Savills

Although the long-predicted slowdown did finally arrive in 2020, it was not triggered by economic developments, which was a great surprise to everyone. It also affected the real estate market. While it meant a slight slackening in development activity in some sectors, other industries such as hospitality and retail were forced to close down entirely for some time. Savills estimates that due to the pandemic this year’s total commercial property investment volume in Poland is likely to reach approximately €5.5 billion, which will represent a 30 percent decrease year-on-year.

The industrial sector displayed relatively the strongest resilience to the negative economic consequences of the pandemic as it benefited, among other things, from the growth in online shopping. According to preliminary data, industrial completions totaled approximately 2.2 million sqm in 2020, bringing Poland’s total stock to close to 20.8 million sqm, says Savills. Leasing activity reached a new high after the first three quarters with 3.7 million sqm transacted, while the industrial investment volume surpassed last year’s all-time high in September (€1.8 billion). Looking ahead, the Polish industrial market will be driven, among other things, by the nearshoring trend and last-mile logistics.

“Warehouses have certainly outperformed this year. They constitute an extremely sought-after asset class as they saw an over 200% increase in investment activity in the first three quarters of 2020 compared to the same period last year and accounted for close to a half of the total commercial property investment volume in Poland in that period,” Tomasz Buras, CEO, Savills Poland, said.

(WBJ)