The Edinburgh market showed a strong recovery in the year to end of February, with space disposed of up 45%.
Although the average deal size remained virtually identical to last year, agents are signing more deals – 173 in total this year – more often. The top five agents secured a massive three-quarters of the market, but there were two new entrants: Savills at number 10 and Rapleys at number six. Rapleys stormed into the top 10 with its sole deal, acting on the 75,500 sq ft letting to Grand Theft Auto creator Rockstar North.
Going up
After a hard time in last year’s league table, DTZ nearly quadrupled the amount of space it transacted, ending the year just shy of 90,000 sq ft. The agent scored big despite landing only seven deals, which put its deal size at more than double the average of the top 10 agents. In fact, three large deals tipped the balance, with the agent’s largest letting to JLT, which signed for 34,000 sq ft at Edinburgh Park.
Going down
Four agents saw the amount of space transacted this year slip by over a third compared with the same period last year. Cuthbert White, Eric Young & Co, CBRE and the newly merged GVA James Barr all slipped, although with the latter it’s worth noting that the figure excludes any deals made by James Barr before the merger in October last year. Even CBRE’s fairly sizeable instruction on the 20,600 sq ft letting to Zonal Retail Data Systems at Tanfield failed to win it a place higher up the leaderboard, and for the second year running it slipped down the rankings.
Source: Estates Gazette Office Research. The table covers 12 months to the end of February 2014. It covers disposals in Edinburgh (EH1, EH2, EH3, EH8, and EH12) for the period 01/03/2013 to 28/02/2014. Occupational sales and lettings are included (not investment sales). Joint-agency deals are related to both agents.
