URA: Office rents fell 3.2% and 3.1% in Q4 and 2019 respectively

In the central region of Singapore, the rents of office space dropped by 3.2 per cent in the final quarter of last year compared to the preceding three months. This 3.2 per cent decline was higher than the 0.6 per cent decline in the third quarter of last year, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) on Thursday (23 Jan).

The office rental index also fell 3.1 per cent for the whole of 2019, compared to the spike in 2018 by 7.4 per cent.

Based on the URA’s 4th Quarter 2019 real estate statistics, prices of office space in the central region declined in the third quarter by 3.9 per cent, followed by a 0.5 per cent decline in the fourth quarter.

For the entirety of 2019, the price index fell 0.6 per cent compared to the rise by 5.7 per cent in 2018.

At the end of quarter four of 2019, the total supply nationwide was approximately 753,000 square metres (sq m) gross floor area of office space in the pipeline, exceeding the 738,000 sq m at the of quarter three.

In the fourth quarter also, the amount of occupied office space increased by 30,000 sq m in net lettable area, contrasted with the increase of 71,000 sq m in quarter three.

The stock of office space in NLA declined by 4,000 sq m in quarter three, followed by an increase by 29,000 sq m in quarter four.

Consequently, the vacancy rate for the whole island dropped 10.6 per cent at the end of the third quarter and dropped 10.5 per cent at the end of the fourth quarter.