Commercial property investment in the City set for a record year, according to Savills
Commercial property investment in the City is set to reach or beat the record of £12.6bn set in 2014, according to research from Savills.
Investment in the Square Mile for the first three quarters of this year has already beaten the full-year total for 2016. Volumes hit £8.5bn by the end of September – six per cent higher than 2016’s annual total of £8.07bn.
A total of 93 deals have been struck this year, with an average lot size of £91.6m compared to £52.4m in 2016.
September saw £317.53m transacted across three deals, equating to an average lot size of £105.84m – Savills pointed out. Key deals during the month included a private Hong Kong investor acquiring the 176,392 sq ft Aldwych House, WC2 for £250m from Rowan Asset Management. The building is let to tenants including WeWork, Wasserman and the London School of Economics.
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Other deals from last month include the sale of 8 Bouverie Street, EC4 to Harbor Group International for £48.03m.
Felix Rabeneck, director in the central London investment team at Savills, said: “We are still currently monitoring 67 investment opportunities in the City market totalling approximately £7.8bn, of which 20 are currently under-offer, totalling almost £1bn, leaving a substantial amount of available opportunities and therefore plenty of potential for 2017 to overtake 2014’s record.”
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