Investment Transactions in the Central Europe: Evidence of Growing Acceptance?

Starting with a complete lack of modern specified office property in 1990, the skylines of Warsaw, Prague and Budapest have undergone rapid transformations since the countries emerged from centrally-planned, command economic systems. In roughly 13 years time, real estate developers and builders have constructed approximately 3.5 million square meters of modern office space for multi-tenant use. Previous research has outlined the relationships between rents, values, construction and the stock of supply in real estate markets. DiPasquale and Wheaton (1996) lay out a framework for real estate markets as they move through the cycle. Mueller (1995) also provides a framework for analyzing cycles in real estate markets that is related to the DiPasquale and Wheaton models. Both analyses provide relevant background for development of a model of emerging real estate markets in Central Europe. This paper identifies a pattern that has played out in the development and construction of the three markets: inactivity, cautious beginnings, hypersupply and equilibrium-seeking. A survey of investment transactions in Warsaw, Prague and Budapest suggests a similar pattern with investor capital, though with a lag to the building cycle. At the same time, the decline of capitalization rates and the concurrent narrowing of the spread between high and low cap rates implies another trend at work Ò a gradual reduction in investorsÌ perception of the risk of investing in Central European countries.