A fall in rent free periods being offered across the London office market have led to net effective rents rising faster than headline rents.  Net effective rents for prime space continued to rise in Q1 2023 and are at around 0.5% of their pre-pandemic levels.  Headline rents, across London’s sub markets, however, have been somewhat static, despite an ongoing lack of supply. Some districts have seen an increase, most notably core City of London (3.4%) and Soho (2.7%), but overall growth in prime central London headline rents sat at a modest 0.4% during this quarter. Over the past 12 months to Q1 2023, prime headline rents across central London increased by an average of 2.6%. Across the four key submarkets, the strongest rental growth was in the City at 3.6%, followed by the West End at 3.4%. Docklands saw growth of 1.85% over the year, while Midtown increased by 0.8%. Looking at the net effective rent based on [...]

WeWork Inc stated last week that it had received a non-compliance notice from the New York Stock Exchange, due to its stock closing below $1 over a consecutive 30 trading-day period. Shares of the flexible workspace provider continue to slide.  The company will have six months to regain compliance.  The company had benefited from the shift to flexible working practices outside traditional offices driven by the pandemic but has been feeling a pinch from mass layoffs across the tech sector and shares have fallen over 65% year to date.  Since their surging growth through the 2010s WeWork has been trying to focus on more profitable leasing deals in recent years. WeWork says it is considering a number of available alternatives to cure its non-compliance. Currently, however, WeWork’s penny stock status precludes a range of possible investors as their value is too low to meet their investment parameters.

Planning permission has been granted at 21 Bloomsbury Street for the refurbishment of these 86,000 sq ft Central London offices.  The refurb is to be undertaken by Morgan Capital on behalf of Capital 38 who acquired the building in 2012 for an undisclosed sum and will give the building a gross development value of circa £150m. Work is due to start in the third quarter this year and will see an atrium café/lounge, rooftop café/event space, building wellness studio, 174 cycle spaces, 112 lockers and 17 showers and a feature cycle entrance. Simon Morgan, investment and asset manager of Morgan Capital, said  “Twenty One will set a new benchmark for how existing buildings can be sustainably reimagined to provide the exemplar buildings of tomorrow, providing the performance and amenity to compete with the very best new builds, whilst achieving aspirational levels of low embodied carbon through 95% retention of the existing structure.”

Central London investment has rebounded in the first quarter of 2023 following the lowest levels of investment on record. This signals the start of a recovery in volumes and is thanks to an influx of Asian money. The £1.65bn investment in central London offices in Q1 was more than double that of Q4 2022 heavily led by Asian capital, making up 74% of all purchasing activity in Q1 2023. Major deals included Malaysian firm Gamuda’s £257m purchase of Winchester House; the £395m acquisition of St Katherine Docks by CDL; GIC’s £1bn joint venture at Tribeca in King’s Cross; and Japanese firm Obayashi’s purchase of 60 Gracechurch Street for around £160m. Ed Bradley, CBRE’s head of London capital markets, said that “following a sharp repricing of office values in Q4 2022, we are once again seeing significant interest from Asian investors, both established groups as well as new entrants. “We expect Asian investors to lead the rebound in investment [...]

The office market is forecast to see a fall in sales values over the next quarter whilst rents are expected to see some growth in comparison to the first quarter.  This can be seen as purely a product of the cyclical nature of property and it reacting to other markets; although other headlines may seem more alarming The Guardian has asked could offices be the next big casualty of the banking crisis which on the surface of it may cause worry. At the same time as the Evening Standard tells us of the property market “London copes better than rivals with less vacant office space recorded “ The banking crisis comprises the failing of Silicon Valley Bank and the rescue of Credit Suisse, who had been in trouble for years - so not really a crisis as of yet. Accepted neither of these is great news but whether they a creating the perfect storm for the property industry [...]