The Property Council of Australia released its half yearly update on the state of the country’s commercial office market today.

In a reflection of the current resurgence of business confidence that we are noticing first hand, the statistics painted a good news picture for Gold Coast City as a whole, where vacancy rates continued their steady improvement in the six months to January 2014. This is the third consecutive year of positive net absorption.

A total of 13,077 square metres of office space was taken up across the City, representing the largest volume of net absorption since 2007.

The combined Robina / Varsity Lakes office precinct saw a significant tightening in vacancy rate as the availability of good quality commercial space is becoming harder to come by.

The vacancy rate in Robina / Varsity Lakes dropped to 11.8% in January 2014 (compared to 16.7% for the whole of Gold Coast City).  It was also by far the strongest precinct in regard to absorption of available space with 7,261 square metres (net) being taken up during 2013. Although the Varsity Lakes area is currently strengthening, the Robina sub-locale within this precinct still records the lowest vacancy rate across all areas of the coast, currently estimated at less than 7%.

In their Gold Coast office market snapshot also released today, CBRE predicted that with strengthening business confidence, and limited new supply, the vacancy rate is likely to reach sub 10% across the whole Gold Coast City by 2016 with the ongoing reduction in vacancy putting pressure on rents to increase and incentives to soften.

They also note that in addition to a limited short term supply pipeline, “challenges for the market moving forward are limited large-scale space for users of 800sqm plus with currently only a handful of options available across the entire market”.  In 2013 over eight leasing deals were recorded for spaces of over 1,000 square metres.

In regard to Robina / Varsity Lakes, CBRE predict that in the medium-term, this precinct will take over from Southport as the largest Gold Coast office precinct.

COMMERCIAL SPACE FOR SALE & FOR LEASE

Premium Grade new office space is currently available for lease and for sale within CityPods in CBDRobina, where Stage 1 was recently completed. Read more about CityPods here.

Also now leasing is the premium new office project, The Base centrally located in CBDRobina, adjacent to The Rocket.  Full floor plates of up to 1,854 square metres are available for lease – read more or enquire here.

QUICK COMPARISON – THE FACTS:

  • Gold Coast City office vacancy rate has dropped from 19.9% to 16.7%
  • Robina Varsity Lakes vacancy rate has gone down from 17.2% to 11.8%
  • Broadbeach sub-local has an 11.7% vacancy rate
  • Southport has a vacancy of 13.7%
  • Bundall’s vacancy is 21.5%
  • Surfers Paradise has a total vacancy rate of 29.2%
  • Robina / Varsity Lakes currently makes up almost one third of Gold Coast CIty’s total 459,890 square metres of stock

For further information, CBRE’s Gold Coast Office Market Snapshot can be found here.

Original Source: Property Council of Australia, Office Market Report, January 2013.