Vacancy Falls on Solid Absorption Cushman & Wakefield Releases the Report 2018 Greater China Top Office Demand Trends

HONG KONG,
CHINA -�Media OutReach - 3
January 2019 - Cushman &
Wakefield (NYSE: CWK), a leading global real estate services firm, today released the report 2018 Greater China Top Office Demand Trends. The eight key city markets covered in
this report saw strong demand for office space throughout the past 12 months.
In every one of these significant city-level Grade A office markets, the
October 2017 to September 2018 time period saw office absorption notably rise
on a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis.

Provisional
on market level supply/demand dynamics in our eight tracked key cities
(together with the location and quality of newly completed supply), a diverse
picture will persist. As witnessed during the preceding year, vacancy will
likely fall in some cities, but could rise in others. An analogous picture
should transpire for city-level rental rates.

Ahead into 2019,
and exclusively focusing on the demand dynamic, we anticipate office absorption
to continue to remain solid.

 

Beijing

Three of the
main sectors — Professional Services, Finance and Technology, Media &
Telecommunications (TMT) — are expected to have continued strong demand in 2019.
This is especially the case for technology companies as the city is being
positioned as a National Technological Innovation Centre;

Shenzhen

Hugely
benefitting from the Greater Bay Area development framework and other favorable
initiatives, Shenzhen is expected to see increasing demand for Grade A office
space, which will mainly stem from the Finance and TMT sectors;

Shanghai

The
tightening lending policy environment will promote some conservative thinking
within the Finance sector. But this will be balanced out by industry reforms,
which will promote new business opportunities, which in turn will produce
appetite for office expansions from benefitting companies. Meanwhile, the
Professional Services and TMT sectors will likely continue to see general
business growth. Lastly, Shanghai remains one of the cities much sought after
by co-working operators for market share. Having said this, we could also see
some further market consolidation among the co-working operators for the year
ahead;

Guangzhou

Due to a
series of favorable policies and initiatives, Guangzhou should continue to
realize strong leasing demand from the Finance and TMT sectors, as well as from
both international and domestic co-working operators;

Chengdu

Under a
tightened policy environment, the office demand in 2019 is expected to come
from the Professional Services and TMT sectors. Co-working operators are
expected to lessen the rate of expansion after aggressive center growth in the
past few months;

Hong Kong

Decentralization
is a major trend for MNC leasing activity due to tight availability and high
rentals in core areas, while co-working operators are actively taking up more
Grade A office space in core areas in their chase to gain market share. Looking
forward, we expect the same office space demand trends which have touched the
city over the past 12 months to continue to impact Hong Kong for the year
ahead;

Wuhan

Recently,
there has been active leasing activity by companies using Wuhan as a base for
their central China regional headquarters. The TMT sector is set to continue
another period of strong demand for core and suburban office space in Wuhan
over the course of next year;

Taipei

Relocation
and office consolidation by professional services companies, along with
innovative technology companies in the TMT sector, are expected to be major
demand trends for the Grade A office market during the upcoming year.

 

Ms Vicky Shen, Senior Director, Head
of Office Agency, China, Cushman & Wakefield, said, “From a landlord’s
perspective, in a number of markets, the tight availability and subsequent
rental rises have been welcomed. However, even within these markets, there are
still plenty of leasing opportunities for occupiers, especially in
sub-districts with a lot of recent new supply.”

 

Mr Jonathan Wei, Managing Director,
Head of Occupier Services, China, Cushman & Wakefield,
said, “In China, our tech sector clients have seen significant
headcount growth over the last few years. We don’t see this trend letting up,
particularly for those successful unicorn companies.”

Mr Shaun Brodie, Senior Director, Head of Occupier Research in Greater
China, Cushman & Wakefield said, “In the future in the Greater China region, we expect
users to increasingly view co-working not just as a space solution, but also as
an overall product, which takes into consideration space, design, amenities,
technology, the community network and services.”

Please click
here to view the full version report.

 

About Cushman & Wakefield

Cushman &
Wakefield (NYSE: CWK) is a leading global real estate services firm that
delivers exceptional value for real estate occupiers and owners. Cushman &
Wakefield is among the largest real estate services firms with 48,000 employees
in approximately 400 offices and 70 countries. Across Greater China, there are
20 offices servicing the local market. The company won four of the top awards
in the Euromoney Survey 2017 & 2018 in the categories of Overall, Agency
Letting/Sales, Valuation and Research in China. In 2017, the firm had revenue
of $6.9 billion across core services of property, facilities and project
management, leasing, capital markets, advisory and other services. To learn more,
visit www.cushmanwakefield.com.hk or follow us on
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/cushman-&-wakefield-greater-china)