During their presentation held at the beginning of CEDER 2024, CBRE discussed the trends on the office market, where, despite hybrid work conditions and economic uncertainty, the total leasing activity has a positive trend. One of the most important aspects discussed was the fact that the size of deals on the Romanian market is changing dramatically, from a market dominated by large leases to one where small deals, of 1 to 4 thousand sqm, are the norm.
Other key takeaways were the fact that trophy assets outperform in terms of rent and occupancy and the fact that organizations need to focus on selling the workplace value for both company productivity and employee development.
On the topic of return to the office, presenter Tudor Ionescu, Head of Advisory & Transactions Office, CBRE said: “There is a raise in the push for presence in the office regarding hybrid work. Right now, about 90% aims at spending half of the week inside the office. One thing is interesting regarding the local market: (…) this trend is even more abrupt. We’ve seen a lot of discussion of companies aiming for three days in the office and there is a catch here: (…) you actually start to see spaces no longer enough for people, meeting rooms no longer enough.”
Talking about the tendencies of the current real estate environment during the Future of Development panel, Silviu Stratulat, Managing Partner of Stratulat Albulescu Attorneys at Law, confirmed that when it comes to return to the office, Bucharest is doing better than other major cities of Europe. While admitting that there is currently a lot of interest directed towards other fields of real estate, he expressed his belief that “office will never die, regardless of the phases. People need to have the professional community, the professional reference [which is] going to the office.”
An interesting trend of the Romanian office market is the fact that, although Bucharest remains the “powerhouse of development”, the regional cities are slowly catching up on the development front. Raluca Stanislav, Head of Business Development with Cushman & Wakefield Echinox, said: “There is a total of approximately 80,000 m² that were delivered last year in regional cities. And that pushed to a threshold of 1 million m² as stock. (…) And this sends us a good signal for regional cities and also for the future.” She mentioned that Iași surpassed Timișoara through its deliveries last year, becoming number two after Cluj on the regional front. She also talked about Brașov as “a smaller city coming from behind with a very good location in the centre of the country and leaning on industrial areas and new catchment of tourists”.
