Prime office rents rose 1.8% in Q4 2017

Singapore saw prime office rents increase 1.8 percent quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2017, revealed Knight Frank’s Asia Pacific Prime Office Rental Index.This comes as the city-state’s office market showed continued signs of recovery during the period, with active leasing activity gathering pace, said the property consultancy. With this, prime office rent in Singapore is expected to increase over the next 12 months.Across the Asia Pacific region, prime office rent rose 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter and 1.1 percent year-on-year during the last quarter of 2017 as rents increased in 12 of the 20 markets tracked by Knight Frank.Aside from Singapore, other markets that registered increases are Jakarta – which topped the index with a 3.8 percent increase – Manila, Sydney, Mumbai, Guangzhou, NCR, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Brisbane and Taipei.“Relatively strong economic performance has sustained active office leasing markets across Asia-Pacific in 2017,” said Nicholas Holt, Knight Frank’s head of research for Asia Pacific.“Growth in demand from co-working and technology-related spaces will continue to be a prominent trend in 2018 across most of the region’s key markets.”Looking ahead, Knight Frank expects rents across 16 of the cities tracked to either remain flat or increase, similar to its previous forecast.