Emerging Europe: Values to drop as risk aversion rises

The fast-moving pace of developments means that the impact of COVID-19 on Emerging European real estate is highly uncertain. We expect the sharp decline in economic activity and deterioration in sentiment to weigh on rental values and cause property yields to increase sharply in the first half of the year. However, once the virus is brought under control, we think that economic activity will recover and that some of the increase in yields will be reversed. That said, the risks to this outlook are skewed firmly to the downside.