March 29, 2024

Jocuri

Mad about real estate

Savills Report Commercial Property Construction Falls to Lowest Ever Level

Savills Total Commercial Development Activity Index hits lowest ever level last month, with private work most affected.

Commercial development activity fell in October as economic conditions worsened, new data from Savills has shown.

Around 55{ef6a2958fe8e96bc49a2b3c1c7204a1bbdb5dac70ce68e07dc54113a68252ca4} of developers reported a drop in overall activity last month, compared with just 6{ef6a2958fe8e96bc49a2b3c1c7204a1bbdb5dac70ce68e07dc54113a68252ca4} reporting a rise.

The resultant net balance, the Total Commercial Development Activity Index, fell to minus 49.7{ef6a2958fe8e96bc49a2b3c1c7204a1bbdb5dac70ce68e07dc54113a68252ca4}, from minus 40.7{ef6a2958fe8e96bc49a2b3c1c7204a1bbdb5dac70ce68e07dc54113a68252ca4} in September, its lowest level since the survey began in March 2003.

Private sector work also fell at a considerably faster rate than public sector development, largely attributed to a downturn in private sector capital expenditure.

Developers also noted that deteriorating economic conditions had led to a marked decline in occupier demand.

Commercial developers said they were highly pessimistic in October about the three-month outlook for activity, with business sentiment falling to a new record low.

Commenting on the October survey, Mat Oakley, head of Savills’ commercial research department, said: “With this month’s survey being carried out before the latest massive cut in the UK base rate, it is too early to say whether this has had any impact on developers’ confidence.”

But he added: “While we do not expect a rebound to positive territory next month, the fact that both swap rates and Libor are steadily falling should provide some good news for developers.”

About UK Business Property

Whilst there are more than 20 portals covering residential property in the UK the commercial property market remains relatively unserved, with no site having a majority share of the total available commercial property listed. The internet has taken a significantly greater share of all advertising spend each year as it continues to prove that it is the most effective medium for advertisers to reach their audience.

Traditional estate agency methods remain quite successful in reaching the local market around a property, but do not capture leads from the national and international markets at all well. With increasing mobility of populations and business in the global village, it makes sense to expose commercial properties as efficiently as possible to the whole market. In 2006 there were 6 million searches (based on figures from Yahoo Search) made on the internet in the UK for commercial property of all types. Many of these searches will be fruitless as major search engines do not expose many of the available properties at present.

UK Business Property aims to change this by offering commercial agents important incentives to bring all their properties to the whole market. By linking to UKBP agents will bring more traffic to their websites. For agents who do not yet have a fully featured search on their website UKBP offers it’s advanced search functions free of charge, in an easy to implement solution. The advantage is that you keep your visitors on your site and build your brand in your local market, while receiving leads from a national and international audience.