Demand for modern industrial warehouses fell in the Czech Republic in 2011, going against a trend of increasing take-up across Central Europe. In fact, there was a record level of take-up across the region, with the 3.2 million sqm far out-stripping the 2.8 million sqm leased in 2008. “The increasing demand reflects businesses confidence in the market,” says the Head of CE Industrial Team, Cushman & Wakefield Ferdinand Hlobil. (These take-up figures are for the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.)
Poland leased the largest share of space, almost 60 percent of the CE take-up last year. But in the Czech Republic, take-up fell from 863,000 sqm in 2010 to just 770,000 sqm. The highest year-to-year increase in activities was seen in Slovakia, where take-up volume almost doubled.
Vacancy rates have decline across the region for the second year running, having reached an average slightly in excess of 10 percent at the end of 2011. While Hungary has more than one-fifth of its premises available for rent vacant, Slovak vacancy fell to just 5 percent already in 2010, and has stayed there. In Romania, vacancy rate plunged by ten per cent, year-on-year, to the current 4.7 percent. Despite falling take-up, Czech Republic numbers have improved to just 6.3 percent vacancy as of the end of 2011.
