1.2M sqm of Office Spaces to be Added in PH Market

Real estate consultancy firm Santos Knight Frank forecasts an additional 1.2 million square meters of leasable office space to enter the market this in 2021.

Santos Knight Frank senior director for occupier services and commercial agency Morgan McGilvray said the office space market vacancy rate expected to increase in 2021 with these new supplies coming into the market and added that a number of new office spaces are projects that should have been finished and ready for leasing in 2020.

This follows a trend seen in vacancy rates of the local office space market as Santos Knight Frank data show vacancy rates at nearly 10 percent last year compared to a little over 4 percent in 2019.

However, rates are expected to stop fluctuating in 2021 with the higher supply of office space than the demand, he added.

Santos Knight Frank chairman and chief executive officer Rick Santos said that the Philippine real estate along with the global property market experienced a challenging year amid the pandemic, but a rebound is expected as the economy recovers.

“2020 was a challenging year for Philippine real estate and the global property market, but we see the new year as a promising time for real estate sectors such as industrial and logistics, office, residential, REITs (real estate investment trusts), and data centers, among others. In general, we expect to see a soft rebound in the real estate market as the economy gradually recovers,” he said. (GFB)