Author Archive for Vass Emőke – Page 3

Budapest may add 22 Hotels and 3,000 Rooms in 5 Years

By Vass Emőke
Friday, July 12th, 2024

The hotel and hospitality sector is once again regarded as an attractive development and investment option. Hungary, and particularly Budapest is seen as a popular tourist destination, with guest nights in the capital set to return to and exceed pre-pandemic levels.

Sustained Growth
Budapest’s popularity as a tourist destination remains robust, and it continues to be one of the most popular cities in the region, alongside Prague and Vienna, according to Róbert Székely, hospitality and leisure expert at the consultants Newmark VLK.

“Notably, in 2023, the RevPAR [revenue per available room] in Budapest was higher than in Prague, its main regional rival. According to forecasts, passenger traffic at Ferenc Liszt International Airport will return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024,” Székely says.

“The largest impact on tourism in Budapest could come from the state’s purchase of Ferenc Liszt International Airport. Meanwhile, hotel supply development is continuing: hotel brands such as Kimpton, St. Regis, Radisson Collection, Voco, Vignette Collection, Moxy, Mandarin Oriental, So, and Swissotel -just to name a few are entering the market, resulting in a differentiated supply,” he adds.

BBJ VLKNewmark scaled

To read more click on the link below:

https://bbj.hu/

Categories : Hotel tourism

Maximizing Potential: Opportunities in Vacant Office Buildings

By Vass Emőke
Wednesday, July 3rd, 2024

Several hundred thousand square meters of office space are expected to become available in Budapest as state organizations relocate to new offices. This shift presents a significant opportunity for property owners to either renovate and enhance the value of their buildings or reposition them into residential units or hotels. Such conversions are particularly advantageous for diversifying the hotel market, according to the commercial real estate consultancy firm, Newmark VLK Hungary’s June market report.

In the next two to three years, various state and governmental organizations will vacate several buildings in downtown, creating a new situation in the office market at a time when office use has fundamentally changed. Property owners will need to address the hundreds of thousands of square meters of office space that will be vacated. While this will require financial investment, it also offers an opportunity to enhance the development of these properties, according to experts from Newmark VLK Hungary.

They emphasized that the first step is a thorough technical survey, along with a real estate market assessment to determine the property’s best future use. While it could remain as office space, market conditions might prompt consideration of converting it into apartments or hotels. Both types of conversions are already common in Western Europe and the United States. In Budapest, there have been cases where office buildings have been successfully converted into hotels.

“These unoccupied buildings cannot remain unused as they are typically in prime business locations. Many weren’t initially constructed as office spaces, but if the owner opts to keep them as offices, significant investment will be needed to meet the latest technical and environmental standards, including ESG requirements. The question is whether the owner is willing to carry out the necessary renovations and modernizations within the building, and whether this can be done while tenants are still residing there. If the renovations are carried out, the next question is whether the tenant is willing to pay the increased rent or if they will move to another, newer building instead. However, since there are very few new buildings available, this fact could be a catalyst for the office market and may result in new building developments that will be able to accommodate these multinational tenants in 3-4 years,” said Valter Kalaus, the company’s managing director.

Valter Kalaus - VLK Newmark - Office

According to the consulting firm, uncertainties in the office market might prompt owners to consider new functions for their properties, given the strong demand, particularly in the hotel market and also in the residential sector. However, it is important to consider that it is technically easier to create smaller room units in buildings currently used as offices in downtown areas compared to newly built office buildings in outer districts, due to differing technical parameters.

Róbert Székely, the company’s hotel market expert, states that professional surveys indicate increasing demand for accommodations, and this trend is expected to continue in the coming years. According to the May hotel industry forecasts by STR (Smith Travel Research), a 5.1% increase in RevPAR is expected in European markets in 2024, with an additional 2.8% growth in 2025. The forecasts predict that growth will continue in the following years, although with variations in each local market.

These trends support the demand for three- and four-star hotels. With no greenfield development opportunities or vacant lots available in downtown areas, hotel developers have shifted their focus to repositioning buildings with different original functions, such as office or residential buildings. By converting these structures, they can and are increasingly likely to create new value.

As a new trend, he mentioned that, unlike previous years when operational contracts were more common, long-term lease agreements have now emerged, providing greater security for the owners.

“In the office market, tenants typically sign contracts for 3, 5, or maybe 7 years. In hotels, we can talk about 20-30 years, and the building will have a single tenant, which is much easier to manage than having many tenants with different lease terms if it remains as an office. Although banks consider it riskier for such a property to operate with a single tenant, they are beginning to accept that long-term revenue generation is more secure, as the owner or landlord does not always have to find new tenants when the current tenant’s lease expires or if the tenant does not want to stay,” he added.

He believes that the Budapest hotel market benefits from the broadened supply created through building conversions. More hotel brands, more hotel market products, and, of course, more tourists can give new momentum to tourism and infrastructure development. Four-star hotels are perhaps the most popular category for business travelers and individual tourists, and they are generally profitable in the inner districts where Budapest tourism is concentrated. In buildings selected for conversion outside of the downtown area, there are opportunities for lower-priced hotels or other alternative accommodation uses, such as youth hostels, hostels, aparthotels, or mixed functions like student accommodation combined with a hostel. Naturally, these accommodations will likely attract more price-sensitive or younger guests who are willing to stay further from the CBD in exchange for lower rates.

Categories : Office

TOP 50 Executives – The Most Influential RE Executives in HU 2024

By Vass Emőke
Tuesday, July 2nd, 2024

“Does the real estate business matter? Beyond the not insignificant fact of putting a roof over our heads, whether in the office, at home or, increasingly, a mixture of both as we embraced our hybrid future? I don’t mean to sound flippant; the answer is a resounding “Yes.” Apart from anything else, hitting targets to reduce global warming will be impossible without real estate, in the most broad and general of interpretations, doing an awful lot of the heavy lifting. Why? Well, together, building operations and construction account for nearly 40% of global energy-related CO2 emissions, according to a Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction report based on 2020 data. That may now be four years ago, but the statistic is not, as far as my uneducated eye can gauge, controversial. Indeed, several real estate executives featured in this publication cite it or something very close to it. The Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction, a flagship publication of the United Nations Environment Program, found in a report published on March 7, 2024, and based on 2022 figures, that energy demand and emissions from the building and construction sector represent over a fifth of global emissions. In 2022, buildings accounted for 34% of global energy demand and 37 % of energy and process-related carbon dioxide emissions. The report quotes Inger Andersen, the UNEP Executive Director: “There is no credible path to address climate change without a fundamental shift in the building and construction sector.” So, no pressure then.

I don’t mention any of this to create a rod to beat the back of our real estate executives, which would, in any case, be a pretty odd tactic for a publication dedicated to them. I cite the figures to underscore how vital the sector is to this planet and everyone on it. In other words, you should be interested in the people who run our real estate businesses, who build the offices we work in, and who must simultaneously protect Budapest’s architectural inheritance and create a modern, livable cityscape in which residents, workers and tourists can all find a home. In this publication, we seek to chart how they are doing just that, with specially commissioned and curated editorial content exploring the office, industrial, hotel and investment sectors, as well as looking at the rise of ESG in real estate and exploring the tensions in the architectural development of Budapest. We feature a helpful listings section detailing the leading companies, their business results and points of contact. Between those two sections, you will find the real meat of this publication: the biographies of many of the sector’s leading personalities. Find out what drives and inspires them and how they see the industry’s future in 2024 and in years yet to come. I hope you find it useful and informative because what these people, their colleagues and their businesses do matters on so many levels.”

Robin Marshall MBE, Editor-in-chief
Budapest Business Journal

VALTER KALAUS (4th time on the list)
Newmark VLK Hungary

BACKGROUND INFO

Valter Kalaus is the managing director of Newmark VLK Hungary. After receiving his diploma from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1996, he began his career as a commercial real estate advisor in the United States. In 2001, he moved back to Budapest and since then has been advising corporate real estate users, mainly in the Central European real estate markets. Kalaus established the predecessor of Newmark VLK Hungary in 2008 under the name VLK Real Estate Consulting. Before that, he was a vice president of Equis Corporation, a global real estate advisory firm for which he established the CEE regional office and managed operations from 2001 until 2008. He also worked as a director of real estate at KPMG, where he was responsible for establishing a new service line and consolidating the real estate-related services within the firm in Hungary. He has been swimming since age of five and was a member of Hungary’s 1988 Seoul Olympic swimming team. In the recent World Aquatics Masters Championships 2024 in Doha, he won two gold, two silver and two bronze medals and set a World Championship record as a member of the Honvéd Masters Swim Team. He is a board member of the Hungarian Swimming Federation. Kalaus is an active member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and a certified master scuba diver. He is the proud father of an eight-year-old son, and in his free time, he enjoys riding his motorcycle and playing golf.

Valter Kalaus - TOP50 RE Executive - BBJ

To buy the magazine click on the link below:
https://bbj.hu/shop/top-50-real-estate-businesses-executives-2024

Categories : Press

Wizz Air moves its headquarters to a landmark office in Budapest

By Vass Emőke
Monday, April 8th, 2024

Ultra low-cost airline Wizz Air has relocated its headquarters to Millennium City Center office park in Budapest. The company secured an 8,000 sqm of office space in a landmark office deal. The lease agreement was concluded for long term with very flexible conditions. Newmark VLK Hungary provided tenant representation to execute this transaction.

In a landmark lease transaction, Wizz Air moved its staff to the Millennium Tower. which is part of Millennium City Center premium office park by the river Danube in Budapest. The airline has set up its new headquarters by renting out the entire South Tower with state-of-the-art interiors and services to improve employee comfort. The company has its own, separate entrance and reception, a dedicated modern dining and catering area and a unit of a leading café chain, while a modern fitness centre is also available in the area.

“We tried to find a vibrant and rapidly developing location for the client. Millennium Tower is an excellent property as it is surrounded by a lot of services and the building itself offers many amenities. It already functioned as a company headquarters, so a significant part of the fit-out could be retained, a more cost-effective approach could be used to arrange the final interior space, which is an important aspect for a tenant which is a low-cost airline,” said Valter Kalaus, managing director of the real estate consulting firm, Newmark VLK Hungary which spearheaded the transaction, representing the tenant.

He added that only a few new projects have been launched in the Budapest office market over the past three years, most of the contracts are extensions and there are very few suitable office buildings among those already operating where such a large company headquarters can be established according to the modern standards and requirements. In addition, the flexibility of the lessor has extended to the point that it can also provide additional space for the future expansion of the airline should there be a demand for it.

“We are delighted to be moving our corporate headquarters to an office building with such outstanding facilities. The new premises will give Wizz Air, Europe’s fastest growing airline, a central hub to foster collaboration, community and innovation to strengthen its low fare leadership position. I am sure that the modern environment and easily -accessible downtown location will be appreciated not only by our existing and new colleagues, but also by our partners, while serving our continuously growing and expanding airline for many years to come.” – said Ian Malin, Chief Financial Officer of Wizz Air.

Categories : Office

Essential’s to retain office tenants, a quality canteen, café, and fitness center

By Vass Emőke
Friday, March 22nd, 2024

Leasing ground floor spaces of office buildings to retailers may help to retain core office tenants, even if it is done at a depressed price.

Restaurants, café, grocery stores and fitness centres are good choices – says commercial real-estate company Newmark VLK Hungary after summarizing its experiences of the past year.

Newmark VLK Hungary survey results have shown that in today’s environment, which is defined by the home office, there is an even stronger dependence between landlords and ground-floor tenants than before. Companies leasing office spaces want to lure their employees back to the workplaces, however, it is no longer enough to provide almost „hotel-level” offices; they also need locally available wide range of services.

” Landlords need tenants, and tenant companies’ employees need bank branches, dry cleaners, restaurants, or café’s where they can have business negotiations in a more relaxed environment if needed. Employees will appreciate grocery stores and fitness centre too.” – explained Valter Kalaus, managing partner of Newmark VLK Hungary.

Valter Kalaus as the guest of the Jazzy Radio, Business Class program was talking to Melinda Kamasz and Csaba László

Valter Kalaus Irodapiac - ESG, Home office, megváltozott iroda használat

He believes that landlords nowadays have to accept that retail tenants are not willing to pay rent. What they are ready to pay is some smaller, revenue-proportionate fee and, of course, pay the service charge. Before COVID, landlords could ask for monthly rent of € 20-22/sqm for better retail areas, but this has melted significantly by now.

Ground floors are predominantly leased out by restaurant or café operators which welcome external guests as well. Their disadvantage, however, is that they mostly see a significant number of guests only during lunch hours, thus cafés limit their spaces to 150 sqm while restaurants don’t want to take more than 400-500 sqm, as it wouldn’t be profitable. However, there was a recently concluded deal (handled by Losonci György, responsible for the retail sector at Newmark VLK Hungary) in which a restaurant entrepreneur signed a contract for an 800 sqm area.

Some restaurant operators try to lease office spaces close to their central kitchen; several have two or even more restaurants, thus improving their efficiency. Quite a few experiment with vegan food as well which, however, are somewhat more expensive.

According to Mr Kalaus, fitness centres, typically built for the tenant employees, are performing well. Like restaurants, these also occupy approximately 400-500 sqm but are open longer hours, before and after the work as well. Moreover, recently, many of them have introduced 45-minute thematic classes, so office workers can pop in during their workday. On top of that these units also integrate well into the surrounding residential areas, so customers come from there too.

There is another aspect for landlords: sports and leisure service providers are good clients also because they rent areas that others do not want to. If they do, however, they will demand significant discounts, but they do not need natural light, or even windows for the offered activity. However, sound insulation, ventilation, fresh air supply, and security are crucial to install.

A few years ago, smaller supermarkets appeared on the street facing ground floors of the office buildings. They are excellent complements to other services, as they have no time limit and can provide more revenue-proportionate money to landlords. However, not every office building can open one if the warehousing and stocking conditions are unsuitable. Technical transformation can be disproportionately costly as well, thus not every retail chain would undertake this.

Valter Kalaus also emphasized that retail tenants of office buildings are not willing to sign long-term contracts. They want trial months or a maximum of one year to decide whether to stay or move. As a result, they are reluctant to make significant modifications or developments within their premises, which doesn’t give too much flexibility to the landlords. But at the end of the day, they usually find a common ground, as both parties need each other.

For more news please click HERE.

Categories : Uncategorized

Real Estate Market Actors Look to Upturn for 2024

By Vass Emőke
Wednesday, January 17th, 2024

It remains an open question when investment activity in Hungary and the CEE region will pick up ater a subdued period due to concerns over the cost of finance, and the uncertain economic and geo-political environment, says real estate editor Gary J. Morrell. Another worry is how long yield corrections will continue.

Despite concerns over the cost of construction and debt finance and also around demand, healthy pipelines remain in the industrial, hotel and office sectors. All projects must be of a standard to meet changing tenant, customer, staff and guest expectations regarding the quality and design of space and increasingly strict and all­ embracing sustainability requirements.

“I don’t expect much noise on the investment market in 2024, but we also know that there is money to be spent, so I am certain we will see some interesting deals,” comments Valter Kalaus, managing principal at Newmark VLK Hungary. “I expect 2024 to be a difficult but interesting year.

I don’t anticipate many new projects, but I do expect some interesting resurrections of old ones and re-births of some forgotten ones. Both the office and industrial segments might show good signs so that we might see some noteworthy transactions. Tenants who are in the position to make a move can most certainly get some outstanding deals,” Kalaus adds.

To read more visit: https://bbj.hu/

Categories : Office

Central European Business Awards (HBA) – 2023 Winners

By Vass Emőke
Monday, December 4th, 2023

Newmark VLK Hungary – Best Real Estate Service Provider of the Year 2023
Valter Kalaus, Managing Partner – Real Estate Grand Prix 2023

The Central European Business Awards (HBA) is the prestigious business award for companies and company managers in Hungary. It was created as a merger of three previous awards, the long-standing Hungarian CEO Awards, the FINTECH Awards and the WiB – Women in Business Hungary Awards.

“In our experience, many awards are won by the same large company leaders year after year, which raises the question: “Are there other great leaders and companies who deserve the recognition?”. We believe so. As a result of our vision, we created the Hungarian Business Awards.” – Somogyi Péter

For more information visit: https://businessawards.hu/

Categories : Press

Five medals won at the European Masters Swimming Championships – Valter Kalaus

By Vass Emőke
Monday, November 27th, 2023

Valter Kalaus won three gold and two silver medals at the Masters Swimming European Championships organized by LEN (European Aquatics) in Madeira last week.

The managing partner of Newmark VLK Hungary has been swimming since the age of 5. He was a member of the Seoul Olympic team in 1988, and to this day he still competes in the Masters category for World and European Championship titles, while he also strengthens the Hungarian swimming as a board member of the Hungarian Swimming Association for several years.

With his routine he achieved time results that even beat younger age group swimmers at the European Masters Short Course Championships held last week in Madeira. As a swimmer of the Budapesti Honvéd Sports Club, he was able to stand on the podium a total of five times, winning three gold medals (100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, 1.5 km open water) and two silver medals (400m freestyle, 800m freestyle).

“It is not easy to combine the preparation for the Championships with my everyday work load and my family life, but now that the Masters European Championship has ended so successfully for me, I can say that it was well worth it and now I’m preparing for the World Masters Championships which will be held in February, 2024 in Doha. My goal was to win a medal in every race that I entered and I have accomplished that. Now I am very happy and at the same time, I owe a huge “Thank you” to everyone who helped me during my preparation process,” said Valter Kalaus.

For more informations vicit: https://www.len.eu/calendar-2023/

Categories : Press

BSCs an Essential Part of Budapest Office Market Development

By Vass Emőke
Thursday, November 23rd, 2023

Hungary, and Central Europe in general, has successfully ptomoted itself as advanced but cost-effective business destinations for international companies looking to establish what used to be called shared services centers. That trend helped make what are now increasingly called business services centers a core driver of the developer-led office market.

Valter Kalaus- Office-BBJ

To find our more visit bbj.hu 

Categories : Office

Europaproperty announces the Winners of the 2023 CRE AWARDS

By Vass Emőke
Wednesday, November 15th, 2023

Newmark VLK Hungary – Professional Service Provider of the Year 2023
Newmark VLK Hungary – Tenant Representation of the Year 2023

The CRE Awards celebrate excellence in the commercial real estate sector. Judged via a rigorous evidence-backed process on the success and market excellence of all nominees, these awards acknowledge the contribution of the commercial real estate profession in enhancing the reputation of commercial real estate companies operating around the CEE region.

Major winners of the 2023 CRE Awards included leading market players WING, NewWork, CPI, Erste Group, CBRE and Newmark…..

Newmark VLK Hungary received recognition from the jury for their substantial contributions to commercial real estate, securing the titles of Professional Service Provider of the Year and Tenant Representation awardee.

To read more click on the link below:

https://creawards.net/celebrating-success-5th-annual-cre-awards-in-budapest/

Categories : Press
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