Dublin’s office market is in no danger of oversupply as long as development finance remains hard to come by believed the panel at the Estates Gazette Question Time in the city.
The panel were responding to fears from the audience that new developments from Iput, Kennedy Wilson and others were potentially adding too much stock into the market.
Paul McDonnell, head of property finance group at Bank of Ireland, said that the current 3-3.5m sq ft of office space under development was largely prelet to new tenants, meaning that demand was still outstripping supply.
Watch below to see an exclusive insight into the Irish market with Andrew Gunne, chief executive of Chartered Land, and Roland O’Connell, chairman of Savills Ireland filmed before the EG Dublin Question Time event
Roland O’Connell, chairman of Savills Ireland, was in agreement. He said that there was no potential for oversupply before at least 2019, especially as much of the new developments, particularly those by Iput in the city centre, were replacing existing stock.
However, McDonnell said that with the office market normalising in Dublin and development replacing portfolios, the market needed to be “watchful” of oversupply after this date.
Click below to listen to a full recording of the event
Stephen Vernon, chairman of Green Property, said the real danger was in the reliance on the tech sector in Ireland to meet demand. While companies like Google and Facebook may have become more like utilities, he said the smaller “unicorns” could not be relied on to become tenants with the same longevity.
In addition to easing fears on oversupply, the panel discussed the need for denser residential property in the city centre and a change to tax and planning to ease the development of such property, the only route the panel thought to solving the shortage of cheaper housing in the Irish capital.
The Dublin Question Time was held at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and was organised by Estates Gazette in association with Savills and Bank of Ireland.
The panel consisted of:
• Roland O’Connell, chairman Savills Ireland
• Paul McDonnell, head of property finance group at Bank of Ireland
• Stephen Vernon, chairman Green Property
• Andrew Gunne, chief executive Chartered Land
• Chaired by Damian Wild, Editor, Estates Gazette
• To send feedback, email mike.cobb@estatesgazette.com or tweet @MikeCobbEG or @estatesgazette
