108 AGENCY is expanding into the Hungarian market
108 AGENCY has operated in the Czech and Slovak markets for ten and six years respectively. The decision to branch out into Hungary was underpinned by the increasingly favourable conditions within the local real estate market and 108 AGENCY’s strong long-term vision to further expand and diversify its range of services into the Central Eastern European region. 108 AGENCY has now started its operations by cooperating with three local professionals who have many years of experience in commercial real estate. “By entering the Hungarian market, we are fulfilling our strategic vision of gradually expanding 108 AGENCY across the CEE region. Following entry into Slovakia, the expansion into the Hungarian market is a logical step and the absence of a strong local commercial real estate agency has only accelerated this move. I see great potential in Hungary, it is an ideal location for us to offer our professional services,” explains Jakub Holec, CEO at 108 AGENCY.
Experienced consultants and plans for future development
The Hungarian branch of 108 AGENCY already has three senior consultants, each with more than fifteen years of experience in international real estate advisory, transaction, and development or asset management consulting.
As a Managing Partner, István Fazekas is responsible for all of 108 AGENCY's activities in Hungary. Before joining 108 AGENCY Hungary, he worked as a senior investment consultant within the CBRE capital markets team for five years. Prior to CBRE, István has spent five years at Cushman & Wakefield Budapest, where he led the industrial agency team.
The other two partners, Marcell Szotyori-Nagy and László Kemenes will be responsible for sourcing new business opportunities to the local branch through their professional networks. Marcell has worked at the Capital Markets Team of JLL for thirteen years in Budapest and was a director of the company until 2019. Since 2015 he has been a member of RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors). László has worked as the Country Manager of Prologis in Hungary for thirteen years. Prior to that he headed CBRE's industrial department for four years. He has been a member of the RICS since 2011.
The Hungarian branch of 108 AGENCY will work closely with the Czech and Slovak offices and intensively expand the team of professionals to provide clients with additional services, including market analysis and research reports. The company intends to build wide-spread knowledge and awareness of the 108 AGENCY brand in the Hungarian market over the following twelve months. “We want to provide our clients a full-service offering. We are starting with investment and industrial mediation, but in the future, we want to extend our services through office leasing. As in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, we will benefit mainly from a strong industrial team. In the industry, we will be linked to land development and land transactions, representing tenants or landlords and, last but not least, transaction consultancy on both the buyer and seller sides,” explains Jakub Holec.
Cooperation across European markets
Although there are several established commercial real estate companies on the Hungarian market, 108 AGENCY will also offer its know-how along with innovative procedures and a pro-client approach. 108 AGENCY Hungary will act completely independently, similarly to the branch in Bratislava. “We will benefit mainly from the experience of the Hungarian team and at the same time we want to exploit synergies between all three countries. Within a year, we want to become a major player in the local market, and as in the Czech and Slovak Republics, offer our business partners the best real estate consulting services,” explains Jakub Holec.
The figures confirm the potential of the Hungarian market
The strong fundamentals of the Hungarian market offer a lot of opportunities. As István Fazekas explains and summarizes the current situation: “Following the trends from past years, 2019 was typically characterized by a high level of rental, investment, and development activity in all segments of the domestic commercial real estate market. Demand continued to be met by lagging supply, leading to decreasing vacancy rates and rising rental levels. The vacancy rate remained historically low in all market segments throughout the past 12 months. The outlook for the post-COVID pandemic and the extent of the economic consequences likely to affect the market, mainly in decision making timelines, but investor appetite is still high fuelled by healthy demand for logistics and office sectors.”