This article draws on Colliers’ analytical report on the green real estate market in Central and Eastern Europe. The findings are especially relevant for Armenia, whose market is growing rapidly and beginning to align with international trends, including on sustainability.
Real Estate Market Maturity and Green Certification are growing together. Colliers’ data shows a near-linear relationship between a market’s size and liquidity and its rate of green certification: Warsaw, Budapest and Prague, the largest and most mature CEE markets, also lead on certification, because scale attracts the institutional capital that requires it as a condition of entry. Armenia’s office and mixed-use market is still small, but its trajectory, rising foreign investment, a first internationally financed flagship project, suggests it is entering exactly the growth phase in which CEE markets began to professionalise.
The oldest, least certified stock is where the opportunity is largest. Colliers is explicit that markets with a significant share of buildings over fifteen years old (the report highlights Bratislava, Budapest, Prague, Riga and Tallinn) represent the region’s biggest retrofit opportunity, because upgrading them to meet modern energy and certification standards is what will unlock the rent premiums and lower operating costs newer buildings already have. Armenia’s residential and commercial stock is a genuine liability for energy consumption and living standards today.
Tenants are voting with their leases for certified assets. The clearest number in the entire Colliers report may be the simplest: newer, certified buildings across CEE post materially lower vacancy than older, uncertified ones in the same city. That is a demand signal: tenants are choosing certified space because it is cheaper to run and more pleasant to occupy, and landlords who ignore that are the ones absorbing the vacancy. Armenia does not yet have enough certified stock to generate that comparison locally, but the first certified projects confirm that.
What this means in practice
For Armenian developers and landlords, the practical takeaway from the CEE experience is to treat certification as a value driver to get ahead of, not a compliance cost to defer. For policymakers, it means continuing the alignment of Armenian building codes with international regulation. or investors, it means recognising that Armenia’s current position, small market, ageing stock, minimal certification, is not a red flag but a snapshot of where Warsaw, Bucharest and Bratislava stood before their own certification curves turned upward.
The CEE markets with 80-98% certification rates for new supply took the better part of a decade, a regional regulatory push, and enough early, visible projects to convince tenants and lenders. The CEE data suggests that outcome is close to inevitable wherever ESG-aligned capital and regulation meet an ageing building stock. So, this path lies ahead for Armenia too…
Sources: Colliers, “ExCEEding Borders: CEE-11 Office Markets on the Green Path — Decarbonisation Potential” (2025)
