February 20, 2020
Another very good year for the warehouse market
In 2019, the Polish warehouse and industrial market witnessed a record supply amid an unwavering occupier demand despite the earlier fears of an economic slowdown, says real estate advisory firm Savills. Demand continues to be driven, among other factors, by e-commerce.
- Supply of modern warehouse and industrial space in Poland totalled 18.5 million sq m at the end of 2019.
- Central Poland remains to be the fastest growing market. In 2019 the volume of new supply in the region reached 603,800 sq m, the highest result countrywide (22% of total volume).
- With 551,000 sq m of new supply Upper Silesia is another dynamically developing market.
- By far the largest market is still Warsaw with supply of 4.3 million sq m, which in the last four quarters increased by 307,600 sq m.
- Developers activity remained at a high level despite the fact they completed a record volume of new supply in 2019. There was almost 1.9 million sq m of warehouse and industrial space under construction at the end of the year, which is only 1% less than in 2018.
- The highest volume of space under construction is in Upper Silesia (478,100 sq m) and in Warsaw (470,100 sq m), where developers activity has almost doubled year-on-year.
- Demand for warehouse and industrial space across Poland in 2019 totalled over 4.1 million sq m (an increase of 2% y-o-y) – the second highest result ever recorded in the market.
- Net absorption hit the second highest result in the history and summed to 2.2 million sq m (up by 3% y-o-y).
- At the end of 2019 the availability of warehouse and industrial space exceeded a million sq m and amounted to 1.3 m sq m (65% up y-o-y).
- The highest vacancy rate at 12.4% (7.3 pp up y-o-y) was noted in Central Poland. A high share of vacant space at 9.5% (0.8 pp up y-o-y) was observed in Poznań.
- Rents in 2019 on the majority of the markets were stable. Some changes were observed in Warsaw I and Kraków where rents decreased and in Warsaw II where rental growth was recorded.
- Headline rents range between EUR 2.70 sq m/ month and EUR 4.40 sq m/month in case of BIG BOX unit and up to EUR 5.25 sq m/month for SBU. Effective rents range between EUR 2.00 sq m/ month and EUR 3.30 sq m/month for BIG BOX and up to EUR 4.60 sq m/month for SBU.
