Hopes lift as rents for City offices rise
THE take-up of office space in London rose 64 per cent in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the previous three months, signalling a recovery in the hard-hit British capital, property broker Cushman & Wakefield said yesterday.
There were 1.86m sq ft of new office space rented in the three months to end-September, compared with 1.13m sq ft in the second quarter and just 716,000 sq ft in the first three months of this year, it said in a report.
“This improving demand, coupled with a constrained supply pipeline beyond next year, means that the bottom of the market for prime space has been reached,” said James Young, head of Cushman’s City office.
The third quarter take-up was below the 2.1m sq ft rented in the same period a year ago, before the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered the financial crisis.
The agency said it that benchmark rents for prime offices have already bottomed out.