Office market in Querétaro stops its pace of reactivation

Queretaro, Qro. During the period January-September 2021, the office real estate market maintained growth in demand, a rate that slowed in the fourth quarter of last year, according to studies by the real estate platform Solili.

This behavior means that the state has not yet resumed the level of demand for offices it offered in the pre-pandemic period, explained the director of Solili Market Research, Pablo López.

“During the year, we had some very good quarters that increased net uptake, i.e. what is rented little that is vacated, basically in the first three quarters it started to grow,” he said.

The decline in the last quarter of the year, he explained, may be related to the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly with the spread of the Omicron variant; however, it is not yet possible to determine what the effect of this variant was, as its presence increased in December, just a few weeks before the end of 2021.

The uncertainty prevailing in the office real estate market limits the planning of new developments as investors remain on the lookout.

“Developers have not started building in anticipation of seeing what happens and there is no demand as such in full recovery. “While it is true that it is already at positive levels and with an upward trend for three quarters of the year, it is already declining this fourth quarter and it may already be with the effect of Omicron,” said the specialist.

While there are still challenges in reaching the level of employment the state had before the health crisis, there are elements that improve expectations as the level of oversupply that prevailed in the square began to decline.

Reduce vacancy

While availability in December 2020 was around 22%, it dropped to 18.2% for the same month in 2021 (this is the percentage of the market that is uninhabited); this change shows that the discarded surface is still being absorbed.

“There’s a downward trend in vacancy, influenced by issues that what’s currently available are being leased, given that construction is downward trend, developers are not generating new projects,” said Pablo López.

Although the impact of the Ómicron variant has diminished the office real estate market, it has deepened, companies adapt to hybrid work schemes, and maintain a mix of both remote and face-to-face work systems, a phenomenon that keeps demand active.

According to Solili reports, there is a stock of 450,000 square meters in Querétaro.

The rental price in the state recovered slightly, 10 cents, from a price of $ 13.81 per square meter, January 2021, to $ 13.91 in December.

Office rentals in the country, in the fourth quarter, were 170,000 square feet; Mexico City was the market that contributed the most, with a demand of 110,000 square meters.

Querétaro was one of the markets with the smallest participation, after reporting in the fourth quarter of 2021 a net absorption of 1,279 square meters and a gross absorption of 2,270 square meters.

A year ago, in the fourth quarter of 2020, Querétaro registered a demand for only 1,259 square meters in the office market, that is, it represents 80% of the rental area of ​​the pre-pandemic period.

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Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx

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