Commercial Vacancies

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Falling vacancies and lower incentives are promising a windfall for landlords across the country, according to Colliers International’s latest CBD Office research and forecast report.
The report projects that positive net-effective rent conditions from net face growth will continue to drive tenant demand throughout 2017 on the back of suite strategies, such as that in Chifley Tower in Sydney, and pre-commitment to new developments, such as the new ANZ building in Docklands.
Despite office investment volumes being down in Sydney and Brisbane, and plateauing in Melbourne thoughout 2016, an increase is expected in 2017, as domestic and offshore building owners trade out of their profitable assets.
“The landlord’s market is in full swing in Sydney and Melbourne,” John Marasco, Colliers International’s chief executive for Victoria, said.
“Enquiry levels are still strong, with the majority coming from business services, health and community services, IT and finance, which is resulting in a more positive environment than what has been experienced in the past few years.
“With large players, both domestic and offshore, striving to achieve access and scale, we expect more capital partnering, like what was witnessed between Charter Hall and Morgan Stanley last year for 1 Shelley Street in Sydney, and possibly more merger-and-acquisition opportunities to emerge in 2017.”
Daniel Lees, Colliers International’s research director, said that with the reduction of office supply continuing in Sydney and Melbourne, significant increases in rent and reduction on incentives would be experienced.
“We predict the low supply pipeline will see vacancy rates well below long-term averages in Sydney and Melbourne, beginning to fall in Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra, and stabilising in Perth,” he said.
Colliers International’s mangaging director for valuations, Dwight Hillier, said the report indicated that the total internal rate of returns would strengthen throughout 2017, prompted by strong effective rental growth in the Sydney and Melbourne CBD office markets.
“Yield compression is forecast for the Sydney metropolitan office market in particular, as purchasers are forced to hunt for initial yield and total return beyond the CBD,” he said.
Sydney’s vacancy is anticipated to trend lower to 3.7% in early 2020, before rising to 5.7% by mid-2022.
“Sydney will enjoy a brief period of respite from negative net supply during the next six months as refurbishments come online.
But negative net supply will quickly return for the subsequent 18 months,” Simon Hunt, Colliers International’s managing director for office leasing, said.
“It won’t be until the first half of 2019, when withdrawals subside and the first building of the next Sydney supply cycle – 60 Martin Place – is complete, that Sydney finally starts a period of positive net supply.”
Vacancy in the Melbourne CBD is declining and will continue to do so during the next few years, with the total vacancy forecast to hit 4.3% in July 2021, due to the lack of supply.
“Melbourne’s supply levels have been far less sporadic than Sydney’s and accompanied by stable absorption,” Hunt said.
“We expect that healthy levels of demand will be sustained throughout the next two years, resulting in vacancy falling to 4.2% by the end of 2018, before the next supply cycle kicks in in 2019.”
Brisbane’s prime vacancy is also expected to continue falling during the next two years as tenants upgrade office space, enticed by incentives and competitive effective rents.
Office vacancy is likely to have peaked in Adelaide, as the construction cycle comes to an end this year and there is limited new supply in the pipeline in the short- to medium-term.
Sales activity remains strong as investors stake their claims in new builds, contributing to a volume of more than $453 million for 2016.
“This cap on new development supply and limited existing additions will help reduce the overall national vacancy from record levels to more historic 10-year averages,” Hunt said.
A-grade vacancy is also declining in Canberra, spurring effective rents to rise on the back of dwindling supplies.
Vacancy in the Perth CBD is stabilising, with major supply likely to be limited to new developments during the next two years.
Smaller tenants are most active, joining the office sector’s “flight to quality” movement to secure the best affordable stock.
The report highlights the increasing demand for suites across the country, with premium landlords carving up whole floors to cater to smaller tenants’ needs and boost effective rent values.
“We anticipate that a lack of whole floor space availability will see 2017’s leasing activity weighted to suites,” Hunt said.
While most grades across the CBD are seeing an increase in face-effective rents, the real story is in the sub-500 square metre B-grade market in fitted-out options, the report said.
Landlords are taking advantage of this demand and building new fitouts in these smaller suites or refurbishing suites with existing fitouts.
"Flexible spaces and the activation of areas for work are rapidly rising and filling the needs of tenants looking for lease flexibility," opined Hunt.
"Even though small businesses and start-ups have favoured flexible space, we should start to see larger businesses taking up more space in 2017, as the preference for flexible lease structures permeates through the market.”
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2017 tipped to be the year of the office landlord

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Melbourne CBD core shop vacancies have fallen, a fifth year of decline, and are expected to remain low on the back of more spending, population growth, tourism and the influx of high street global fashion brands.
The CBD core market has just 29 shop vacancies, down from 64 in March 2011 when the vacancy rate reached a post-GFC high of 6 percent, according to Savills Australia’s latest retail research. This marks the fifth consecutive year of declining vacancy despite the addition of several new CBD retail centres.
The vacancy rate also declined over the last 12 months to 2.6 percent from 3.8 percent. 
The figures are supported by a growth in retail trade in Victoria of 5.01 percent year on year in January – the national average was 4.26 per cent - a marginal rise in consumer confidence and continued state population growth including CBD residential population and workforce.
Survey author and Savills’ Victorian research manager Monica Mondkar said there were a number of factors at play which would sustain a tight market in the coming years.
"This is a positive result reflecting the growth in retail trade in the CBD which has been driven by a number of new and refurbished retail precincts and the continuation of the influx of high profile global brands," she said.
Those developments have arguably accounted for a significant part of the increase in spending, attracting thousands of new shoppers to the CBD while growth in both the office and residential population, as well as tourism, has also been significant, she added.
"With the resident population alone expected to grow by 14 percent by 2020 we are going to see the vacancy rate remain low over the medium term." 
The tenancy mix continued to show a rise in the number of food &amp; beverage and hospitality stores, including supermarkets and liquor stores, as well as services and fashion, with the latter growing due to the attraction of shoppers to international brands.
Savills Victorian director, Retail Services, Michael Di Carlo, said the growth in international fashion brands, which saw its peak about three years ago, had continued at a much slower pace which had to a degree stabilised rents and allowed local retailers greater opportunities.
"The growth of international brands has been the story, and to a degree remains the story, but it is now more about the market having plateaued and that opportunities, which had been in a sense denied to local retailers due partly to landlord’s expectations about rents that international brands would pay, have now opened up," he said.
"That is not to say that the international brands influx is off the boil, indeed there remains significant interest in Melbourne including from the likes of Marks &amp; Spencer and Debenhams, who are still in the hunt for space here.’’ 
He said while international brands had attracted shoppers from all over Melbourne it had been the increase in CBD and surrounds residential and workforce population that had driven the rise in food &amp; beverage and services retailing.
"This is a demographic change that reflects what you might call a cultural shift with Melburnians, once wedded firmly to the suburban quarter acre block, now showing a definite penchant for inner-city apartments," he aded.
"That’s a development which is here to stay and that will continue to be a key driver in the make-up of CBD retail. At the same time Melbourne remains the fashion capital and is also firmly on the radar with tourist shoppers and those factors will also drive the CBD market for the foreseeable future.’’ 
The survey found little movement in rents which now range between $1,500 a square metre, for CBD shopping centre space, to circa $11,000 a square metre for prime space on Bourke Street Mall.
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