Publication

Big Shed Briefing – January 2016

Research Article

Contacts & Related Articles

2015 was another strong year in the occupational and investment market

Summary

■ Supply has increased in 2015 by 11% from the record lows that were reached in the first quarter of the year. Supply at a nationwide level now stands at 34m sq ft with a nationwide vacancy rate of 8.04%.

■ The market is typified by units being of a smaller and poorer quality with 72% of units classified as grade B or C and only 7.5% of units on the market over 300,000 sq ft.

■ We expect our supply statistics to be increasingly volatile throughout 2016 as we are currently tracking 7.1m sq ft, across 39 schemes, to be delivered in 2016. For example, supply in the South East increased by over half a million sq ft in the final quarter on account of two speculatively delivered units entering our supply statistics.

■ The occupier market remains robust with take-up reaching 24.1m sq ft, above the long term average of 22m sq ft. By deal count the number of transactions surpassed 100 for only the second time on record.

■ The investment market followed occupier trends with £3.12bn transacted, the second highest year on record and significantly above the long term average of £1.6bn per year. Whilst investor sentiment remains strong we do not envisage significant downward pressure on our prime yield of 4.5%.

Articles within this publication

1 article(s) in this publication