From the West Australian:
Close to a quarter of the office space in Perth’s CBD is vacant and rents have almost halved, according to tenant advisory firm LPC Cresa, which said shrinking office requirements after the resources boom had left the city with an office surplus that could last for many years.
The assessment, likely to be welcomed by tenants, is another setback for landlords.
LPC Cresa said Perth’s real office vacancy rate was closer to 25 per cent than the 19.2 per cent announced last week by the Property Council.
LPC, which recently became part of the global tenant representation group Cresa, said the Property Council’s figures did not factor in the impending completion of several new developments including the office tower KS1 at Kings Square.
LPC Cresa director David Barnes said the real CBD vacancy could be higher than 30 per cent if the calculation also included underutilised space or soft vacancy.
He said many bigger oil and gas and other resource tenants had reduced their workforces by up to 50 per cent but retained the same amount of office space, which would ultimately be either sub-leased or be used to accommodate future growth.
That is, sub-leased.
