Warsaw Research Forum consists of seven largest counselling companies on the real estate market: CBRE, Colliers International, Cushman&Wakefield, DTZ, Jones Lang LaSalle, Knight Frank and Savills. The have published data summing up Q4 2012 on Warsaw's commercial real estate market.
In the last quarter of 2012, 11 new office blocks were erected in Warsaw, offering the total office space of 120.000 sq m. The supply of modern office space in the capital city of Poland presently amounts to 3.859.000 sq m. Green Corner (24 500 sq m) and Business Garden (22 000 sq m) are the largest of the new buildings.
The vacancy rate was at 8.8%, which translates into a 0.7% increase in comparison to the previous quarter. The largest amount of office space was rented on the outskirts of the City Centre (28%) and in the Upper South region (27%). Lease volume reached 153.000 sq m. Therefore, the total result for 2012 is 608.500 sq m, 6% more than in the previous year. New deals constituted 68%, over a half of which consisted of pre-lease agreements.
The largest deal of this kind in Q4 2012 was signed by Frontex, which rented 14.400 sq m in the office building Warsaw Spire, developed by Ghelamco. Grupa Bank Ochrony Środowiska rented the entire office block Feniks (8.950 sq m) owned by Europlan.
Warsaw Research Forum sums up the year 2012 as very good for the commercial real estate market in Warsaw. This is indicated by a twofold increase of new space supply to 268.000 sq m and a relatively low vacancy rate. An increase in the transaction volume shows that the market is active and there is a space for new deals and projects.
Anna Kot, Head of Office Agency & Tenant Representation at Jones Lang LaSalle comments: - In 2013, the commercial real estate market in Warsaw will face the largest new supply since 2000, amounting to ca. 320.000 sq m, which means that the total supply of offica space in the city will exceed 4.000.000 sq m. We estimate that the level of demand in 2013 should remain similar to that of 2012. Even now, 50% of the space which will become available this year is already leased. However, we should bear in mind that the record supply must affect the ratio of unleased space. There will be more and more vacant offices in older buildings, which don't meet tenants' requirements. The tenants – especially companies occupying larger office spaces – tend to carefully analyse their utilisation of the office space and focus on optimising it. This year, we expect both a large share of renegotiations and lease agreements in buildings under construction. Most deals will concern the optimisation of the space usage.