Office rental market up 24% YOY in Jan-Sep in Romania

The volume of new office space rented in the first nine months of 2019 rose by 24% compared to the same period last year to 339,100 square metres (sqm), according to a report of real estate consultancy firm ESOP based on data of the main brokers.

The area of offices that could be delivered in 2019 in Bucharest will exceed 350,000 sqm and in 2020 there is a similar area in the pipeline. Therefore, the market will remain strong with robust demand for pre-renting spaces, the report concludes.

The largest office markets are those in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Timişoara. The volume of contracts renewed and renegotiated increased as well.

"The office market is on an upward trend, it is a period of development and expansion for both multinational and local companies. The companies were especially attracted by pre-renting spaces in the new projects, the segment of the pre-renting registering an increase by 40% in the first three quarters of this year, compared to the same period of last year, to 96,000 sqm in 2019,” says Alexandru Petrescu, managing partner at ESOP Consulting.

In total, in the third quarter of 2019, offices with a total area of 90,810 sqm were traded.

The largest office spaces were rented in Iride Park, AFI Park, Dacia Office, Orhideea Towers and Timpuri Noi Square projects. In Cluj-Napoca, the largest leasing transactions concerned office spaces in the Record Park and CBC projects, while in Timişoara the Iulius Tower project attracted the largest leasing transaction.

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