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Hong Kong’s premium office vacancy rate hits 19-year high of 12 per cent as more companies adopt work-from-home policies to counter downturn
- There is 9.8 million sq ft of empty grade A space in the city, equivalent to about five International Finance Centres or 170 football fields, according to a CBRE report on Tuesday
- Kowloon East had the highest vacancy rate, at 14.6 per cent, while in the city’s main business zone, Central, the rate was 8.2 per cent
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The vacancy rate in Hong Kong’s premium office market climbed to 12 per cent in June, the highest in almost 19 years, as a rising number of companies adopt work-from-home arrangements and cost saving measures to cope with the economic downturn.
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There is 9.8 million square feet of empty grade A space in the city, equivalent to about five International Finance Centres or 170 football fields, according to a CBRE report on Tuesday.
“As the trend of downsizing and cost saving continue, measures like work-from-home arrangements will remain, which leads to such high vacancy rates in all submarkets,” said Ada Fung, an executive director at CBRE.
Some of Hong Kong’s main office districts – Wan Chai and Causeway Bay, Hong Kong East, Tsim Sha Tsui and Kowloon East – saw double-digit vacancy rates last month. Kowloon East had the highest at 14.6 per cent, the data showed.
The vacancy rate in the zone covered by Central, Admiralty and Sheung Wan increased from 7.6 per cent at the end of last year to 8.2 per cent by the end of June.
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In February, Mark Leung, associate director of Hong Kong and China real estate research at UBS, said in a Spotify podcast that the office market in Hong Kong will continue to be disrupted by the work-from-home trend this year as the coronavirus pandemic rages on.
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