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Last year saw Bucharest's stock of modern office space increase by just 110,000 sqm to almost 3.4 million sqm. 2023 thus marked the lowest level of office space deliveries since 2015, and also a 42 percent drop compared to the average of the last 5 years, real estate consulting company Colliers said in a release.
According to the cited source, times of uncertainty require prudence, and this was evident in all aspects of the office market in 2023, a mixed year due on one hand to the aforementioned downward trends, and on the one hand to total demand growing by approximately 44 percent from the year before, to approximately 400,000 sqm, far above the previous record high of 365,000 sqm reached in 2019.
Yet the short-term outlook remains favorable for certain areas of the market, and Colliers consultants estimate that in the case of top-energy efficient buildings that are fairly well connected to the city's infrastructure, the occupancy rate will continue to improve. This will further tip the balance in favor of the landlords in certain submarkets, widening the gap between well-positioned ESG-compliant offices and older such property.
According to the Colliers report, the handover volume is expected to decrease even more, considering that construction activity has slowed down and only one significant project - AFI Loft (approximately 16,000 sqm) is expected to be completed in Bucharest in 2024.
