URA office rental index falls 6.5% in 2015

THE Urban Redevelopment Authority's (URA) price index for office space dipped 0.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter in Q4 2015, the same drop as in Q3 2015.

URA's rental index for office space fell 1.8 per cent q-o-q in the fourth quarter, compared with the decline of 2.9 per cent in Q3 2015. For the whole of 2015, prices of office space retreated 0.1 per cent after increasing 4.5 per cent in 2014. Rentals slipped 6.5 per cent last year, contrasting with a 9.8 per cent increase in 2014.

As at the end of last year, there was a total supply of about 993,000 square metres gross floor area of office space in the pipeline.

The islandwide vacancy rate of office space at the end of Q4 2015 fell to 9.5 per cent from 9.6 per cent at the end of Q3 2015.