Real estate developers do not risk starting new projects.

The investments planned by developers of real estate projects this year will decrease by approximately 50% due to the Covid-19 crisis, Mārtiņš Vanags, chairman of the board of the Alliance of Real Estate Developers, said on Wednesday during the discussion of the study “Shadow economy index in Latvian construction 2015-2019”. The head of the alliance stated that at the beginning of the year, the developers planned investments in real estate projects in the amount of 450-500 million euros, but currently it is expected that the investments will be only in the amount of 200-250 million euros. “Developers are completing the projects they have already started, but there is no risk of starting new projects because there are too many uncertainties with the business environment and the expected conditions,” Hawk said. He expressed the opinion that in order to stimulate private investments, it would be necessary to establish by law credit holidays for the duration of the emergency situation and three months after its end, as well as think about real estate tax compensations for those properties that are currently not being used at all or not being used to their full extent due to the crisis. Hawk also mentioned that there are currently four or five large office projects that are ready to start construction, but the developers have not yet made a final investment decision. These investment decisions could be accelerated by support from the state, offering office centers state structures as tenants. See the full version of the article here