Dublin office space take-up drops 42% in sign of further stress

THE take-up of office space in Dublin in the first quarter dropped by 42 per cent from a year earlier, a report by CBRE showed, compounding signs of a slowdown in Ireland’s commercial real estate.

Vacancies rose to 13 per cent, up from about 8 per cent in the same period last year, following the delivery of newly constructed space. Meanwhile, assignment and sub-lease deals accounted for just over 40 per cent of all take-up in the first three months, the largest quarterly proportion on record, CBRE said.

The data add to growing evidence of stress in commercial real estate after office-space deals slumped 83 per cent at the end of 2022 amid rising interest rates. Meanwhile, high-profile technology firms such as Google and Twitter have been laying off staff, while Meta Platforms decided to sub-let part of its new European headquarters in Dublin late last year.

Even so, technology companies accounted for more than half of all office space between January and March, becoming the most active sector in Dublin’s real estate market for the first time since the second quarter of 2022, CBRE said. BLOOMBERG