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Colliers International has released a report that states that the West End of the capital saw its highest quarterly take-up rate for more than three years.
The research also found that average headline rents in the West End had climbed by five per cent in the first quarter of this year.
On average, the Central London figure climbed to GBP 46.78 per square foot, which translates to an annual rise of 7.1 per cent.
Guy Grantham, Director of Research and Forecasting at Colliers International said: “The squeeze on Grade A supply is becoming more pronounced across Central London. However, total Grade A transactions for built space fell by 25 per cent quarter on quarter, underlining the reduction in ready-to-occupy top-quality office product.
“Low vacancy in the West End is set to have a significant impact upon latent demand from occupiers who might relocate if opportunities existed. In the City market, demand is being dictated more by tenant inertia and global influences but large lettings could easily change the whole tone of a single quarter’s statistics.”
Availability of office space across Central London fell by four per cent in the first quarter of 2011, the Colliers report also found.
Meanwhile, the Lloyds TSB Million Pound Property Report has found that million-pound property sales are increasing at their fastest rate since 2006.
The UK now has 185,000 real estate millionaires the report stated. And there were 7,185 million pound property sales transactions in Britain last year, the research found, some 54 per cent higher than in 2009.
Editor’s notes: In 2022, the amount of office space taken up by lettings deals in the West End of London totalled 4.1 million square feet which was 11 per cent higher than the 10-year average.
At the end of 2022, there was 3.1 million square feet of active demand in the West End.
Tenant-controlled supply i.e. office space that can be sublet or assigned from a tenant stood at 6.4 million square feet at the end of 2022 which represented a 3 per cent increase quarter on quarter.
This increase in supply translated to equated to an overall vacancy rate of 6.3 per cent in the West End.
In the last quarter of 2022, there was an increase newly built space brought to the market in Q4, rising 7 per cent over the quarter. This resulted in the new build vacancy rate rising to 1.0% which was above the 10-year quarterly average of 0.8%.
At the end of 2022, it was expected that supply would increase in the short term as there was approximately 3 million square feet of developments under construction and due to complete in 2023.