Office space rents rise 1.6% in Q122

The rent increase was higher than the previous quarter's record of 0.9%.

Office space rents picked up at a faster pace in the first quarter of 2022. rising 1.6%, data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) showed.

Last quarter, rents increased only by 0.9%.

Rental indices of both landed and non-landed properties also increased in the first quarter by 5.3% and 4.1% QoQ, respectively.

Across segments, the Rest of the Central Region (RCR) saw the biggest jump in rents, rising 4.7%, followed by Outside Central Region (OCR) (4.0%), and Core Central Region (3.8%).

By end of Q122, the total supply of office space in the pipeline was at about 834,000 sq m gross floor area (GFA).

In the same quarter, the stock of office space decreased by  17,000 sq m (nett), whilst the amount of occupied office space decreased by 13,000 sq m (nett).

Due to the decrease in both the occupancy and stock, the island-wide vacancy rate of office space was unchanged at 12.8%.

Meanwhile, prices of retail space dropped by 1.4% in Q122.