Sharp jump in office vacancy rates

[fudosan]

From Colliers Research Report December 2009:

New CBD office vacancy data for Wellington and Auckland have been completed this week. The Auckland vacancy lift from 8.4% in June to 11.5% in December 2009 is in line with our predictions. The later completion of Wellington’s current crop of new CBD stock explains why the vacancy rate there has increased from 6%.to only 6.9%, but that will climb substantially over the next two years. Prime vacancy in Wellington remains resilient at an amazing 0.7%. The problem is largely concentrated, for the moment, in C grade, which provides about 70,000m² of the 85,000m2 of empty office space in Wellington CBD. Auckland’s vacancy by grade is very different thanks to the completion of two new prime buildings. Indeed premium grade vacancy at 14.3% is higher than every other grade except D grade which is at 22.5%, and hasn’t been below 20% for years.

Here's the Auckland CBD office vacancy change over the last 6 months

Grades / Jun 09 / Dec 09
Premium / 1.9% / 14.3%
A Grade / 6.4% / 10.4%
B Grade / 5.4% / 10.0%
C Grade / 10.8% / 11.5%
D Grade / 24.3% / 22.5%
Overall / 8.4% / 11.5%

You can see the office market is geting worse very rapidly.


Source: http://www.colliers.co.nz/News/2009/...ch-Report-349/

[Commercial Realtor]

Here in the United States, there may be more layoffs and business closings in January. There are many abandonded properties with no real estate signs which indicates that lenders are hiding many bad loans.