Prime office rents to rise 8-12% by Q4

Knight Frank expects prime office rents in Singapore to increase by eight to 12 percent year-on-year by Q4 2018, reported Singapore Business Review. This comes as the “flight to quality and efficiency” supply-led demand is forecasted to continue this year.“Tenants are relocating to larger and more efficient floor plates to fulfil their evolving operational requirements, over less and/or scalable office space through various activity-based workplace solutions,” said Calvin Yeo, Knight Frank’s office advisory executive director and head.The private sector and government’s initiatives to drive growth in the economy could also lead to increased office space demand.Fintech hub Lattice80’s plans to conduct an initial coin offering (ICO) this year, for instance, may catalyse a new segment of office space demand that was not seen in 2017.Knight Frank expects industries such as professional services to lead demand.And given the lack of building completions, the consultancy sees new office space supply waning until 2020 while prime grade office rents increase in the near term. Source: CommercialGuru, 5 Feb 2018