Strong demand for high-quality office space in Rio saw the associated cost of renting rise by as much as 47 per cent in 2010, which took the city to the top of Cushman & Wakefield’s list of most expensive office space in the Americas.
The cost of renting offices in Rio de Janeiro is now around US$120 per square foot, compared with $115 for the same space in Manhattan.
On a global basis, office space in Hong Kong is now rated as the most expensive to rent, just ahead of London’s West End, where typical prime rents rose by 27 per cent last year and currently cost roughly $233 per square foot.
Tokyo came in third in the list of the world’s most expensive office markets but Rio’s surging prices were enough to take it from 13th to fourth in the latest table compiled by C&W analysts.
London’s West End in particular and the city as a whole was able to buck the trend across the rest of Europe, where the cost of renting an office rose by just one per cent in 2010. Meanwhile, South America saw the most dramatic regional growth, with a continent-wide increase of close to 12 per cent overall.
Back in January, C&W reported that London is the world’s largest global property investment market, ahead of Tokyo and Paris in second and third respectively.
Around the same time, figures showed that the number of newly leased offices in Manhattan increased by a full 61.4 per cent over the course of 2010, which was taken to be a positive indicator for the New York office market.
Editor’s notes: In 2022, according to JLL’s Premium Office Rent Tracker (PORT), Midtown Manhattan was the most expensive place in the America’s with a gross effective cost of $220 per square foot per year.
The 2nd most expensive place to rent office space was Silicon Valley at $149 per square foot followed by Midtown South at $132 per square foot.
Miami at $106 per square foot was in 4th place followed by Downtown Manhattan at $102 per square foot per annum.
In 2022, Rio de Janeiro was the 30th most expensive place to rent office space in the world with a gross effective rent of $18 per square foot per year.