Title: Vulnerabilities%20of%20Visegrad%20real%20estate%20markets%20
1Vulnerabilities of Visegrad real estate markets
lessons from the past.
Institute of Management of Slovak University of
Technology BRATISLAVA
- Koloman Ivanicka, Andrej Adamušcin, Július Golej
2Introduction
- The Visegrad group of countries (V4)
- Slovakia,
- Czech Republic,
- Poland
- Hungary
3Economic overview CZECH REPUBLIC
- The population of the Czech Republic (2009) 10.3
million inhabitants - National currency Czech crown
- Capital city Prague (1,249,026 inhabitants in
2009) - strongest economic sectors industry and
services - main export partners Germany 28, Taiwan 8.5,
Slovakia 8.4, Poland 5.9, France 4.9, UK 4.4,
Austria 4.3, Italy 4.3
4 May 2010
source www.cia.gov
5Economic overview POLAND
- The population of the Poland (2009) more than
38 million inhabitants - National currency Polish Zloty
- Capital city Warsaw (1,711,466 inhabitants in
2009) - main industries machine building, iron and
steel, coal mining, shipbuilding, chemicals - main export partners Germany 24.4, France 6,
Italy 5.9, UK 5.6, Czech Republic 5.5, Russia
5.2
6 May 2010
source www.cia.gov
7Economic overview SLOVAKIA
- The population of the Slovakia (2009) 5,463,046
million inhabitants - National currency Euro
- Capital city Bratislava (428,791 inhabitants in
2009) - main industries automotive industry,
electrotechnology, engineering and wood
processing. - main export partners Germany 20.1, Czech
Republic 12.9, France 7.8, Poland 7.2, Hungary
6.3, Italy 6.1, Austria 5.8, UK 4.8
8 May 2010
source www.cia.gov
9Economic overview HUNGARY
- The population of the Hungary (2009) 10.01
million inhabitants - National currency Forint
- Capital city Budapest (more than 1,800,000
inhabitants in 2009) - main industries mining, metallurgy, construction
materials, motor vehicles - main export partners Germany 25.4, Italy 5.2,
Romania 5.1, Austria 4.7, Taiwan 4.5, Slovakia
4.5, France 4.5, UK 4.4
10source www.cia.gov
11Vulnerability
- Social vulnerability refers to the inability of
people, organizations, and societies to withstand
the adverse impacts from multiple stressors to
which they are exposed. These impacts are due in
part to characteristics inherent in social
interactions, institutions, and systems of
cultural values
12Vulnerability
- Vulnerability is a set of prevailing or
consequential conditions, which adversely affect
the community's ability to prevent, mitigate,
prepare for or respond to hazard events - These long-term factors, weaknesses or
constraints affect a household's, community's or
societys ability (or inability) to absorb losses
after disasters and to recover from the damage - Vulnerability precedes the disaster event and
contributes to their severity, impedes disaster
response, and may continue long after a disaster
has struck - Vulnerability has two interacting forces the
external force, which is exposure to shock,
stress and risk and internal force, which is
defenselessness, in other words a lack of means
to cope with problems
13Crisis triggers
- The crisis trigger can be for instance, terms of
trade, political turmoil, contagion from other
countries - Or as in the last crisis the collapse of the
subprime market - The triggers are quite random in their nature and
we usually do not know to predict them - Most of the analysts at the beginning of 2008
were thinking that the V4 countries can withstand
the financial crises without major impact - Their banking systems were at that time judged
as not being directly linked to the subprime
mortgage and securitisation processes which had
initiate the financial crisis in the United
States and in other financial centers - They were wrong.
14Vulnerabilities and early warning systems
- The underlying sources of vulnerabilities should
be described, possible shocks that may unwind
these vulnerabilities - It is necessary to understand, how these shocks
could propagate through the sectors - Then the early warning systems could be prepared
- The warning had to be accompanied by the set of
the policy options that may enable to address the
various types of risks and also the
recommendation of the international policy
cooperation
15Neglect for early warning signals
- When the business goes fine, most of the members
of the politic and business community are blind
and neglect the early warning signals it was
really true in V4 - otherwise they would probably analyze the
vulnerabilities and would try to prepare and to
realize the measures that would protect the
economy against major shocks in advance. - This could be difficult, when the broader
community may not understand the need for the
protective measures in the times of prosperity. - Thus in future the effort should be oriented on
the ways how to address the policy makers in the
way that they would be willing to react on the
underlying vulnerabilities instead of trying to
predict the crises triggers.
16Investment property market
- Property in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)
boomed before the crisis, with investors driving
prices close to west European levels, believing
the region was rapidly converging with the
wealthy west - With banks offering cheap finance, investors
flooded into the less developed markets of the
Baltics, south east Europe and Ukraine. - But in mid-2008, when the global financial crisis
erupted, panic hit CEE and its property market.
Prices collapsed, yields soared, banks cut credit
lines and investors ran into trouble. In Austria,
the IATX property stock index, including
companies with heavy CEE exposure, fell almost 90
per cent from peak to trough in early 2009.
17Prime office rents in V4
18Office supply in V4
19Office demand i V4
20Office market Supply and Demand in V4
21Boom period before the crisis in Central Eastern
Europe
- Rapid growth
- Growth often unbalanced.
- Capital inflows were large, but to a great extent
went to the non-tradable sectorin particular,
real estate, construction, and banking. - Capital flows boosted domestic demand rather than
supplyleading to a surge in imports, current
account deficits that widened to unprecedented
levels, and overheating economies.
22Economic crisis
- The international crisis was imported into the
CEECs economies through external demand and
foreign lending. - Many of the CEECs industries rely to a
considerable extent on foreign demand, both
directly and indirectly, though their
participation in international production chains,
and this is especially true for the new EU
members. (ex. Slovakia 80 of GDP realized by
export) - Last quarter of 2008 (export volumes contracted
between 5 and 15), that became even more severe
in the first quarter of 2009, with drops in
exports reaching 25
23Decrease of lending
- The financial crisis raised risk perceptions in
the international financial markets and
international capital movements slowed down, so
that many countries in Central and Eastern Europe
saw a sharp drop in the amount of lending
available, as capital inflows into the region
stopped or in some cases reversed - The crisis raised the issue of the
appropriateness of a transition and growth
process heavily dependent on economic (both trade
and financial) integration
24The mostly hit countries
- Among the countries most severely hit by the
crisis are those with a high external debt
already in 2008, such as Hungary and the Baltic
states (close or above 100 of GDP), that made
these countries very vulnerable to the problem
of credit crunch and confidence loss that
characterized the international financial
crisis. - It concerns also the countries that are lagging
in transition (Bulgaria and Romania)
25Eastern European Real Estate
26Higher investment growth in CEE enlargement of
production capacities, productivity/quality
improvements, infrastructure project. Latvia and
Estonia outliers in the region.
Excessive investments
Source Eurostat, Erste Group Research,Budash
Capital flows and growth in CEE
26
27Countries with the greatest gap between
investments and national savings - Latvia,
Estonia, Bulgaria and Greece run the largest C/A
deficits. Romania, Portugal and Spain almost at
the same level. The lowest deficits were in
Poland and Czech Republic.Germany, Netherlands,
Austria, Sweden were net lenders.
Highest imbalances
Almost balanced
Net lenders
Source Eurostat, European Commission, Erste
Group Research, Budash
Capital flows and growth in CEE
27
28(No Transcript)
29REVERSE FLOWS OF MONEY
- One unusual feature of the current crisis in CEE
has been the apparent reverse flows from
emerging market subsidiaries to advanced economy
parent banks. - The countries that experienced the sharpest
reduction in cross-border banking inflows, such
as the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, were
in fact the ones with the strongest fundamentals
going into the crises. - The reason for lower inflows was not the loss of
confidence in these countries policies or
banking systems, but apparently, the need of
parent banks from advanced economies to maintain
high levels of liquidity at home during the most
acute phase of the crisis
30Disastrous imbalances in foreign currencies
- Imbalances in foreign currencies are disastrous
for economic agents who do not have the means to
cover the currency risk such as foreign exchange
earnings, hedging - The share of foreign currency credit varied
significantly from country to the other and is
very high in Latvia and Estonia and largely
exceeds the deposits currency high in Hungary,
Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania in relation to
deposits high but lower deposits in Croatia
increasingly strong in Poland low and equal to
deposits in the Czech Republic - Slovakia and Slovenia are in EURo zone, so they
are exposed to the different types of risks
(growing internal public deficits plus deficits
in some southern european eurozone countries)
31Vulnerability of small economies
- Small, open economies are in a number of ways
particularly vulnerable to the types of shocks
which the international financial crisis
generated. - They are vulnerable to shocks which lead to a
reassessment of emerging market risks. This was
especially the problem for South Eastern European
countries and Baltic States with fixed rate
regimes they are more prone to a fast increase of
private sector debt levels (plus potential real
estate bubbles) prior to the crisis. - The other problem - the rescue operations in the
fiscally stronger European economies that had the
spillover effect on the smaller CEEC countries
32Diversification of economies and impact on real
estate
- The regions, cities and states may be more
vulnerable in period of economic crisis if their
economies are not enough diversified. The low
performance in one sector has negative influence
on the region, city, state. This problem is often
more acute in case of small opened economies that
are heavily dependent on exports. - When the importing countries lower the demand for
goods because of the internal problems, the
exporting country is also in trouble. (As with
automotive industry in Slovakia). - Creation of one new job places in base industry
creates often two another places in the service
sector. The destruction of one job in base
industry can just opposite effects. Growing
unemployment then reduces demand for real estate
whether it is for business or for household
purposes - Some countries, especially the Baltic countries,
did not develop the base industries strong
enough, and as the result the impact of crises
was heavier then in V4 countries
33The positive aspects of crises
- The necessity to reduce the rents and prices of
the real estate may help the businesses to reduce
the costs and thus become more competitive - It may also enable the people to move to the
areas were there is higher needs for the labor
and the housing prices would act as reduced
barrier for the labor mobility
34I spite of crises the opportunities for real
estate development in V4
- The region of V4 is still not well enough
supplied by modern, high quality commercial and
residential real estate - The large real estate stock built thirty - forty
years ago does not meet modern criteria and its
economic life is often close to the end - The new more modern buildings were built in last
twenty years only in the most dynamically
developing areas - There is the need for the replacement of many
buildings in close future - Critical consideration, such as climate change
and energy efficiency were not often taken into
account even in the newly built buildings
35Conclusions Main vulnerabilities
- Economic structures without well developed base
economic sectors - The substantial amount of loans denominated in
foreign currency - Low transparency of the real estate markets
- Strong dependance on exports
- Dealys in development of the green buildings
36Conclusions How to eliminate the vulnerabilities
- Better macroeconomic regulation
- By catching and analyzing the early warning
signals coming from changing economic conditions,
and adapting the economic, housing and real
estate policies in advance - More strategic thinking in banking and real
estate companies - Adapting the strategies of real estate sector,
and looking for future market niches especially
the developers - By cleansing of market, which is actually taking
place
37Conclusions how to overcome the vulnerabilities
- The more professional real estate companies with
the longer-term vision and client orientation
will survive and some of the speculators will be
forced to leave the market - Many especially the smaller real estate
intermediaries are already leaving the market - The real estate prices may help to standardize
the behavior of the actors on the market. The
developers will become more responsible, and that
the successful could become only the projects
located in the best localities. . - The considerable market consolidation is expected
by the developers and construction companies.
Financially weaker companies had to leave the
market, sell their distressed properties for
a lower price - We expect that the new behavioral norms and
market processes will emerge from the recession - The recovery may depend on the government
policies (there is not a large margin for
government that is restrained by the necessity of
the fulfillment of Maastricht criteria, and by
the rising public deficits)
38Thank you for your attention