The office market is currently very dynamic, due to the growth of the tenants’ interest for cost optimization, considering the contracts signed in 2007 - 2009, at higher level of rents, reach the maturity.
“Good signs are coming from the BPO and SSC which show interest for the labour market in Romania and for the talent and professional education of the youth. The entry of Deutsche Bank, the growth of Honeywell’s operations, many support businesses and call center companies entering now in Romania (with dimensions between few tens of employees to 500-600) are indicating an attraction wave Romania will in the next 12-18 months”, Paun said.
Approx. 100,000 sq. m offices are scheduled for delivery this year in Bucharest, and the request is estimated to grow. However a drop could appear in total request level.
“The net request (the requests reducing the vacant spaces stock) will continue in 2014 its growing trend, on the background of the growth of companies’ interest for expanding the existing space or on the background of the entry of new companies on the Romanian market. The total request (which includes, apart the net request, the renegotiations and the relocations from A class buildings) could be smaller this year, as there are only a few contracts left to expire this year. Most of the companies with contracts to expire in 2014 have already taken a decision last year (they renegotiated or they relocated”, Colliers’s manager explained.
The consultants estimates that on the office market most probably the rents would remain constant, but the effective rents would vary upon case and considering the vacancy rate existent in the area.
“We registered a significant improvement of the activity on the office market and on the retail market. On the segment of land transactions, 2013 was weaker than 2012; considering it is much more difficult to forecast how the market will develop on long term, the developers were cautious, which translated through the diminution of the transactions – both as number and as purchased area. We could also say that in 2013 the developers focused more on completing the existing projects and less on securing new locations”, Ilinca Paun commented.
“On the office segment, the beginning of 2014 was probably the best start we had in the last 5 years – with very many transactions completed in the end of the year and an important number of transactions ongoing for this year In 2013 we have generated transactions through the relationship with older clients of Colliers, such as Xerox, Capgemini, Huawei or Microsoft. The activity growth on this segment was generated by two important trends: consolidations and expansions”, Paun also said. (source: wall-street.ro)
