Let’s talk about size. It seems that some property managers and MDs are pretending to be much, much bigger than they actually are – and it’s northerners who are the biggest culprits.
In fact, when it comes to looking for new offices, many are requesting more than double the amount of space they actually need.
The research that revealed this trend was done by Officebroker.com and relates to serviced offices but, presumably, parallels can be drawn with the rented sector.
Manchester had the most inflated expectations, asking, on average, for offices with eight workstations yet settling for premises with room for just three staff.
Others in the hall of shame were: Birmingham (50% difference), Liverpool (33% difference), Leeds (31% difference) and Sheffield (31% difference).
The South West and Wales had the most realistic expectations, with companies in Cardiff (7% difference) and Bristol (12% difference) taking space just slightly smaller than they had initially requested.
Officebroker.com says requests are actually up to 62% bigger than the space eventually signed for and ego is at least in part to blame.
Its head of sales, Chris Meredith, says: “It is particularly interesting to note that businesses in areas which have been particularly hard hit by the recession or where there was a specific pressure on space exhibited much more realistic requests than companies in areas which had been slightly more fortunate.”
Nadia Elghamry contributes to estatesgazette.com/blogs
