18 Martie 2010

Top office rent discounts

Romania’s leading office centers have suffered an unprecedented fall in rents over the last 12 months, as big as 40% in some areas, while in Bucharest, rent discounts topped 25% in the past year, data provided from imobiliare.ro portal show.

Constanta, Iasi tops list of areas with biggest rent discounts

Rents for Grade A, B or C office space in Constanta and Iasi dropped 41.5% over the past year, according to imobiliare.ro.

If in March last year, the asking rent for office space in Constanta was €11.59/sqm/month, negotiations now start from €6.78/sqm/month.

Notwithstanding the 41.5% drop in asking rent, Iasi is two notches above Brasov, Constanta and Timisoara, taking up the second spot after Cluj Napoca in a list of office locations by asking rents. For the time being, office rents in Iasi average €7.05/sqm/month, against €12.04/sqm/month a year earlier.

Brasov and Cluj-Napoca - 30% discounts in rental rates

In Brasov, office rents dropped 31% over the past 12 months. In March last year, the average asking rent was €9.27/sqm/month, and now, Brasov office space landlords lowered the rents to an average €6.40sqm/month. Of all the cities under review, the lowest office rents were observed in Brasov.

In Cluj-Napoca, office rents dropped 30.7% in the past year, from €10.26/sqm/month in March 2009 to, €7.12/month/sqm now.

“Over the past two years, a number of office projects have been delivered in the city, and many villa landlords in central or semi-central areas shifted their focus to office spaces, as the residential market remained frozen”, said Adrian Erimescu (photo), managing director imobiliare.ro.


Bucharest and Timisoara - smallest declines

In Bucharest, discount rents for Grade A, B or C office space averaged 26.7% in March 2009 – March 2010, from €14.1/sqm/month to €10.33/sqm/month. Currently, the average asking rent for Bucharest CBD locations is €10.90 /sqm, 26% below year-ago levels.

With an annual variation of -20.1%, Timisoara recorded the lowest rate of decline in office rents. With a significant number of office buildings delivered in the market, the average asking rent is €6.90/sqm/month from €8.64/S sqm/month.

Imobiliare.ro portal was launched in January 2000 and has over 16,000 unique visitors per day. The majority shareholder is the US-based PE fund New Century Holdings (NCH),that also holds Vel Pitar in Romania.

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