The leasing activity on the Romanian offices market registered significant changes in the first nine months of this year compared with 2015, according to JLL Romania.
The leasing volumes in the first nine months have exceeded the level of the entire last year, over 45 percent of the transactions volume being represented by new contracts.
“The companies have rented offices in Bucharest in the fist nine months of the years for at least 11,000 new workplaces, taking into account that 110,000 sqm out of the total demand represents new contracts. Thus, the new demand has reached 250,000 sqm. The rest of transactions represent negotiations, contracts renewals and re-allocations,“ said Andrei Drosu, research consultant JLL Romania.
The demand from Bucharest was generated again by the firms from IT and BPO/SSC, which made a over a third of the total volume of the leasing transactions, followed by banking field and financial services and the companies from professional services.
The central-western area of Bucharest has attracted over a quarter of the demand, while Floreasca-Barbu Vacarescu and Dimitrie Pompeiu attracted together around a quarter of the transactions and the northern and central-northern approximately 15 percent.
Taking into account that the new offer was partially rented and the demand exceeded the office surface delivered on the market, the non-occupancy rate dropped to 12.9 percent, by 20 percentage points under the third quarter of 2015.
It’s expected that the vacancy rate grow until the end of the year and in the first part of 2017 because of the high level of developed projects planned. Until the end of the year, the developers have announced that they will finish 77,500 sqm.