At face value, 2019’s debut on the Bucharest office market has been great, with total take-up at 105,000 sqm, up some 54% year-on-year and the third best print this cycle.
Still, enthusiasm needs to be toned down, as peeling away relocations from modern office buildings and contract renewals, we reach decent, albeit lacklustre, net take-up of c.29,000 sqm for 1Q19 (down some 23% over a year ago).
Another soft detail is the fact that a bit over a 20% of the net take-up was made up of flexible workspace operators.
Furthermore, relocations from competitive stock (i.e. other modern office buildings), which tend to create vacancy, stood at a sharp 54,000 sqm just in 1Q19 versus 102,000 sqm for all of 2018.
Overall, 93,000 sqm have been added to Bucharest’s modern office stock, taking the total to 2.5 million sqm, though by year-end, new offices with a total leasable area of around 250,000 sqm could come online.
