Take-up in London’s West End market in Q1 2018 reached 1.03 million sq ft – 9% up on the long term quarterly average, says Savills. With space under offer in the market at the end of March up on the long-term average by 42%, this is putting pressure on supply, according to the international real estate advisor.
Take-up in London’s West End market in Q1 2018 reached 1.03 million sq ft – 9% up on the long term quarterly average, says Savills. With space under offer in the market at the end of March up on the long-term average by 42%, this is putting pressure on supply, according to the international real estate advisor.
In total 1.4 million sq ft was under offer in the market at the end of March, including around 550,000 sq ft in the development pipeline. Savills says that supply decreased by 125,236 sq ft to 4.67 million sq ft, equating to a vacancy rate of 3.9% at the end of March. This is down 10 basis points on February where the vacancy rate was 4.0%.
According to Savills, of the 2.1 million sq ft of development and major refurbishment projects set to complete in the West End in 2019, 46% (c.900,000 sq ft) is already pre-let, leaving a potential dearth of available space for future large requirements.
Ed Betts, joint head of Savills West End agency team, comments: “With the vacancy rate down, the amount of space under offer up over 40% relative to the historic average and serviced office ‘take-up’ continuing unabated, space is running out. Based purely on market fundamentals, and ignoring macro-events, the remainder of 2018 through to the end of 2020 look set to be vintage years for the small number of landlords delivering high quality office space at scale.”