The office space sector, badly hit during the Coronavirus epidemic, is now rising again. After employees have finished working from home, companies call them back to the office, and because of this, they need more office space.
According to a report, 34.7 million square feet of office space was bought and sold in the first half of 2024 in 8 country’s big cities. This is the most significant volume ever in any half-year. The report shows that there has been a 33 percent annual increase in transactions during this period. In the first half of 2023, deals of 26.1 million square feet of space were done.
Most Deals in Bengaluru
According to the Knight Frank India report, a comprehensive analysis of housing and office space performance in eight major cities has been done from January to June 2024. Bengaluru has the highest number of deals at 8.4 million square feet. This is 26 percent of the total deals of the top 8 metro cities. Mumbai has seen deals for 5.8 million square feet of office space, and Delhi NCR has 5.7 million square feet. Ahmedabad has achieved the strongest annual growth of 218 per cent over the previous year. Chennai was the only city where the volume of office space transactions had declined.
Highest Rent Increase in Chennai
Construction on 25.1 million square feet of office space will be completed in the first half 2024. Due to demand, strong rent growth was seen in all markets during the year. Office rents have increased in almost all metro cities. Chennai has seen the highest rent increase of 9 per cent. The demand for office space in this city is high, and the supply is low. Bengaluru stood second in rent increase with a 7 per cent annual increase in the first half. The strong state of the Indian economy has increased the demand for office space.
House Sales Also Increased
The report claims 1,73,241 houses were also sold in India’s eight most prominent markets in the first half of 2024. It increased by 11 percent on an annual basis. This figure is the highest in the last 11 years. During this period, the launch of new houses has also registered a yearly growth of 5.8 percent. Mumbai has become the largest residential market with 47,259 unit sales.
After this, 28,998 units were sold in NCR and 27,404 houses in Bengaluru. Significant growth has been seen in the premium segment worth Rs 1 crore and above. It has increased from 30 percent in the first half of 2023 to 41 percent. The share of affordable segment sales of Rs 50 lakh and below has decreased from 32 percent in the first half of 2023 to 27 percent.
