Record rents or red herring? While the South East’s new office developments are pulling in rents of up to £37.50 per sq ft, take inflation into account and the picture is very different. Estates Gazette looks behind the numbers
Concerns about rising office rents in the South East are a red herring, according to Strutt & Parker. The advisory firm argues that while rents on new office developments have, on average, surpassed pre-recession headlines, when benchmarked against the Consumer Price Index from 2000 to Q1 2016, they have actually fallen by 24.4%.
The majority of commercial hubs in the South East, with the exception of Slough, Bracknell and Basingstoke, all in Berkshire, and Crawley, West Sussex, have exceeded previous record rents. Maidenhead and Windsor in Berkshire achieved the highest average rent of £37.50 per sq ft.
Strutt & Parker predicted constrained supply could see rents soon exceed £40 per sq ft in the region.
