In the first three months of 2022, office tenants in Bucharest preferred either premium office buildings (top areas and superior quality of space, recently opened or being delivered), or offices where the owners offered more benefits.
“The office market is stable in premium areas, such as the Central Business District (CBD) and Floreasca-Barbu Văcărescu, where no new office buildings are expected to be delivered in the near future. Landlords maintain rents from past years, but offer additional benefit packages. Under these conditions, the net rent can decrease by 10-15%. On the other hand, deliveries of new space are slowing down this year, with 40% less space expected to be put into use than in 2021, which means that at the end of the year we may have another relationship between demand and offer and implicitly another level of rents", says Nicolae Ciobanu, Managing Partner - Head of Advisory, Fortim TA, member of the BNP Paribas Real Estate Alliance.
At the top, in the first place in terms of rents is the CBD (Central Business District) area, around Victory Square, to Charles de Gaulle Square, where the net rent for class A office space is between 16.5 euro / sqm / month and 18.5 euro / sqm / month, in 2022. For class B office spaces in this area, rents decrease by up to 12 euro / sqm / month.
In second place is the central area (delimited by the central ring), where there are usually boutique office buildings and where the rents of class A offices are between 16.5 euro / sqm / month and 18 euro / sqm / month.
On the third place in terms of rents in Bucharest is the Floreasca - Barbu Văcărescu area, where the rents of class A office spaces are between 15.5 euro / sqm / month and 17.5 euro / sqm / month.
It should be noted that in all these three areas of the Top 3, the stock of offices is in modern buildings.
The northern area experienced a revival in 2021 and continues to generate increased interest in 2022 as well, which led to a slight increase in rent in this area, up to 15.7 euro / sqm / month, for class A spaces, most migrating from the Pipera-Voluntari area or other areas without direct access to the subway.
The western area is also in a real estate boom, but the large number of office buildings that are under construction or recently delivered puts a slight pressure on rents, so that the level of net rents is two percent lower in this area compared to the area Floreasca-Barbu Văcărescu. Now, however, competition between developers has set net rents for class A office space in the western area between 13.5 euros / sqm / month and 15.3 euros / sqm / month, and for class B between 8 euros / sqm / month and 13 euro / sqm / month.
