Last year was historic for Poland's commercial real estate investment market, with the total value of transactions expected to exceed €6.3 billion.
According to Agata Sekuła, head of retail investment for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) at JLL, this would be the best-ever result for the country's market. "This proves that international capital is interested in the diverse asset classes that Poland offers, which in turn enhances the position of the country’s real estate investment market," she said.
The 2018 total for hotel investment transactions is expected to come in at around €70 million.
CEE Context
Investor interest seems apt given the region's growing demand with travelers. Last year, Warsaw had 6 million overnight stays, and according to a recent Cushman & Wakefield report, the solid results recorded by the hotels in the CEE region during the past few years have attracted both developers’ attention and investors looking for higher returns compared to western markets.
In November, France’s AccorHotels announced plans to buy the remaining shares of Polish hotel operator Orbis Hotel Group for 1.9 billion zlotys ($501 million), a strong sign of the company’s interest in Central and Eastern Europe.
In April, German real estate investor Union Investment purchased the nine-year-old Park Inn by Radisson in Kraków for an institutional real estate fund for approximately €26 million. This followed an earlier deal in which Union Investment acquired a 256-room hotel in Warsaw and signed a purchase agreement for a planned new hotel with 240 guestrooms in Gdansk. Collectively, the three new acquisitions are worth €106 million.