Vacancy rate for grade A offices slipped to 4% in 1Q14

There weren't new big-time completions.

According to Cushman & Wakefield, on the whole, the leasing market was active in the first quarter of this year with the number of enquiries in the market at a generally healthy level. 

There were no new major building completions during the quarter and coupled with the healthy take-up levels, the vacancy rate for grade A offices in the five submarkets declined marginally by 0.2 percentage point to 4.0% in first quarter 2014.

Here's more from Cushman & Wakefield:

The vacancy rate for Raffles Place was slightly lower at 3.1% as at first quarter 2014, compared to the 4.0% in fourth quarter 2013.

However City Hall saw a slight uptick in the vacancy rate at 1.2% in first quarter 2014, compared to 0.5% in a quarter ago. The vacancy rates for Marina Bay, Shenton Way and Orchard were the same as that in the previous quarter.

Accordingly, the market saw less pressure on landlords to offer more attractive concession packages in order to draw new tenants to their buildings. Nevertheless, tenants will remain cost-conscious and with space take-up driven by expense savings or other critical business requirements.

It is likely that companies taking up spaces ranging 20,000 – 50,000 square feet (sf) will dominate the leasing activities.

However, the larger-sized deals involving more than 100,000 – 150,000 sf of space are not generally in demand by office occupiers in this current market.