Pre-Christmas expectations of rents rocketing in Kings Cross are an indication of London’s booming commercial property sector; it is no longer the prime locations in the West End that are experiencing rapid increases in rental figures. The London market as a whole is in the midst of a period where demand is far outweighing supply. This is due to be the case for the next year at least, and as a result rents across the city are on the up. Kings Cross is one such area, with Bombardier expected to take 6,500 sq. ft. at Argent’s Two St.

In 2014, the Central London office market saw lots of change with new markets emerging, mainly from the usual submarket occupiers relocating and rents steadily increasing across the board. In 2015, the Morgan Pryce team believes we will see more of the same.

A survey of UK managers’ New Year resolutions has revealed that half of them would like to develop their team’s skills in 2015.  This is the first time in recent years that “developing people” has appeared in the top three resolutions, which are:

The King’s Cross redevelopment project, spearheaded by Argent, is the subject of a 20% offer of sale, valued at £2 million, and which, it is anticipated, will attract sovereign wealth funds and pension funds, with potential for the stake available to vary in percentage, depending on investor interest. 

The controversial practice of ‘double dipping’ has been an industry standard for companies which do both acquisition and disposal. How does it work? An agent will act for both the landlord and the company searching, this means when the deal goes through they get a fee from both landlord and tenant. 

Post-recession London as a whole was given a nod to convert office to residential. The purpose of this? To get empty offices with smaller sized floor plates filled. This was very well received by owners as most property in central London is worth about 4x as much as residential in comparison to being used as office space. What actually happened has not been favourable to the London office market; millions of square feet have been taken from the office market and converted to residential.

In a market as tight as what we are experiencing at the moment, new development is essential to add stock. Since the end of the recession we have widely seen a rise in development. Unfortunately, this may be coming to an end with the rise in development costs. 

4 Hardman Square, the 54,300 sq. ft. office space located in the Spinningfields Business District in Manchester, has been purchased by the Investment group Orchard Street for £31m from the German real estate fund, GLL Real Estate Partners. Manchester has been touted as the place to invest in outside of London, with deals earlier in the year hitting record lows of 5.05%. However, with the acquisition of 4 Hardman Square representing a 4.9% yield, Manchester is the most attractive place to invest aside from the Capital. 

In an effort to modernise the Metropolitan Police, the freehold for ‘Ten Broadway’ otherwise known as New Scotland Yard was marketed by Jones Lang LaSalle; New Scotland Yard has been the headquarters of the Met Police for just under 50 years, sits on a 1.7 acre site and contains 600,000 sqft of office space. There was interest from across the globe with the underbidder’s thought to be BNP Paribas Real Estate, Peter Woo’s Wheelock (Chinese Billionaire), Mike Hussey’s Almacantar and Aqualand. 

Oil giant Trafigura is said to be heading towards a deal that, if completed, will set a UK record for the highest rent paid. The company is based in the Netherlands and is the third-largest oil/precious metals trader in the world, and is currently located at Portman House on Portman Street. The company currently has 36 offices throughout the world, with over 1,300 employees in Europe.