Deloitte Real Estate Confidence Survey for Central Europe 2021

The coronavirus pandemic that has been going on for over a year and the related restrictions have caused changes in many areas of our lives and professional activity. They also had a huge impact on the functioning of the real estate market around the world. The changing reality has forced the search for solutions that will meet new expectations.

What views and market sentiments related to real estate market have the investors and developers held? To what extent has the pandemic changed the strategy of real estate companies?

We encourage you to read the third edition of the Deloitte Real Estate Confidence Survey for Central Europe report. It uniquely compares their current expectations with the views we recorded both immediately before the pandemic’s arrival and just a few weeks later when it was at its peak.

The 2021 Deloitte Real Estate Confidence Survey for Central Europe shows that market professionals are optimistic that the year will deliver a post-pandemic market bounce. After the negative sentiments expressed during the first months of the pandemic, respondents now anticipate a more positive economic climate, increasing market activity, higher transaction volumes and improved availability of debt finance.

Has each factor been so positively assessed? Which sectors according to real estate specialists are gaining interest? What challenges do companies have to face?

We encourage you to read our publication.

Selected key findings:

• Around half of respondents in the first quarter of 2021 believe that yields will stabilise in the months ahead. Only one in four are predicting an increase in the next few months; this is higher than before the pandemic, but significantly lower than in Q2 of 2020.

• Most market practitioners expect the availability of investment products to increase. This view is particularly common in Poland, where over 70% supported this belief.

• The pandemic has also strengthened interest in the residential-for-rent sector (PRS). 25% of investors and 15% of developers declares that in 2021 they intent to focus on the PRS sector. Shall these declarations materialise, 2021 may appear to be a breaking point in crystalysing a new investment product category in CE.
• The outbreak of the pandemic has caused a shift in developers’ views about the biggest challenges they face. Before the crisis, they saw their biggest challenges as acquiring development land, the increasing cost of building materials and construction work, and labour availability and cost. Since Q2 2020, however, commercialisation has been the main issue indicated in the survey. This view is reconfirmed in 2021.

Methodology

The Deloitte Real Estate Confidence Survey for Central Europe is a review of the sentiments held by real-estate professionals across our region. In it, we ask three groups of stakeholders – developers, investors and market advisers – for their opinions on a range of issues.

The research consists of two sections. The first focuses on respondents’ views on various aspects of the general economic conditions that they expect to exist across Central Europe in the year ahead. The second section covers each participant’s individual business perspectives on a range of issues.

In the survey, we ask respondents to tell us their views on the individual countries where they operate as well as giving us a perspective across the CE region as a whole. The answers we received have allowed to present respondents’ views on the Polish and Czech markets individually.