■  The economic outlook for Manchester is undoubtedly positive, and while we are not expecting a massive boost to the City's economy from the Northern Powerhouse initiative, it cant do any harm!

■  The strengths of the City will remain its well established and diverse occupier base, its high level of graduate retention, and its forecast strong growth in population.

■  With office rents in London now at record high levels, the 'northshoring' story is not going to go away. We estimate that the cost saving per employee for a company considering a move or expansion from central London to Manchester could be as high as £10,000 per person per annum in property costs, and £10,000 per person per annum in staff costs.

■  Inward investment from London-based businesses will undoubtedly focus on the core and the cluster of planned new developments that we listed earlier.

■  We expect that the availability of the best quality space will remain restrained, even with these planned completions. This will continue to put upward pressure on prime rents, and our latest forecast is that the top rent in central Manchester will reach £37/sq ft by the end of 2019. This represents a healthy 3.2% per annum growth in prime rents.

^{Source: Savills Research}

■ Of course, too much inward investment could be a challenge for the City if it drives up property and staff costs and reduces the potential cost savings for an inward investing business.

■ This kind of prime rental growth will undoubtedly displace some businesses from the higher rented core areas, and we expect to see some decentralisation taking place in Manchester (similar to the trend that has been seen in central London office markets in recent years).

■ While there are a number of refurbishment projects in the pipeline, our analysis of the current level of availability and the historic levels of lettings at different rent bands points to a high level of undersupply of lower rented space. For example, 80% of the lettings over the last decade have been at rents in the £10-£25/sq ft range, but currently only 60% of the available office space is in these rent bands.

■ We believe that this represents a refurbishment opportunity for existing landlords, and we expect to see a rise in such activity in edge of core areas such as the Northern Quarter and Piccadilly.

■ The major barrier to the delivery of mid-priced refurbished office stock will remain owners' hopes for change of use to residential. However, the rising office rents across the CBD are increasingly making office development and refurbishment a comparatively attractive option compared to residential.

■ The outlook for the investment market also looks positive, with an unprecedented volume of investor demand focused on the UK at the moment.

■ We expect to see more domestic and non-domestic investor demand focused on Manchester and the North West due to both the yield spread to London, and investor's desire to capture the the economic and leasing market recovery.

■ While prime office yields in London are now at record lows, this is not the case in Manchester where the current prime yield of 4.75% is still 50bps above its lowest ever level. This, combined with a period of better than normal office rental growth should intensify investor demand over the next few years, and put further downward pressure on prime yields in the City.