Bulgarian office space cheaper and plentiful
The supply of office and retail space in Bulgaria surged in the second quarter of the year from the first, lowering rental prices, the latest report by real estate consultancy Forton, local representative of Cushman & Wakefield said.
A need to streamline expenses and the large number of properties available for rent were likely to trigger large-scale office transactions by year-end, Sergei Koinov, executive director of Forton said.
He said that while domestic companies have put expansion on the backburner as they work out ways to stabilise their business, international firms were hunting for good locations in a bid to secure a successful business in the long term.
Around 31 500 sq m of new office space had entered the market between April and June 2009, bringing the total to 966 000 sq m. Three-quarter of available space was perched on Sofia’s Bulgaria boulevard and the ring road.
The feathers in the cap of the Bulgarian market were falling rents, lower salaries and the country’s EU membership, the report says.
The number of vacant offices had increased by 13.3 per cent in the three months through June and was expected to keep the up-trend by the start of next year as another 100 000 sq m of offices would make their way onto the market. Rental prices were going down, hovering between 6 and 15 euro a sq m, depending on quality.
As retailers saw turnovers shrink by 30 per cent on average, with expensive items down by up to 40 per cent, the retail property market had a tough second quarter, said Pavlina Nikova, retail space manager at Forton.
Low- and mid-segment brands were among the handful of players that were holding active negotiations as a gaggle of owners and investors reworked rents, she said.
Rents on Sofia’s main shopping street Vitosha had crumbled over the past four years from 120 a sq m to 80 euro a sq m.
The combined shopping mall area was 236 570 sq m, or about 30 sq m per 1 000 inhabitants. Work was underway on many ongoing projects, but some investors were said to be four to six months behind schedule.
Text source: sofiaecho.com
Image: google.bg
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