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The share of free office premises in Moscow by the end of the year can increase from 10 to 13%, analysts predict. This is not a record - in 2014–2016. The situation was worse, and this time the collapse of the office real estate market would not happen: even the transition to the remotes would not force large and medium -sized tenants to give up the offices en masse.

“We believe in offices, the offices will not go anywhere”-as the outgoing year and prospects of the 2021st, the managing partner of Knight Frank Alexei Novikov at the conference at the end of 2020, according to Knight Frank, the vacancy of class A offices A according to the results of the year will be about 10.6%, class B class-6.2%. The vacancy of 10-12%, the director of the Office Real Estate Department, Maria Zimina calls the standard for the market: mature markets, for example, in the USA are shown such a share.

Empty or not

At the end of the first half of 2020, the total volume of the market for high -quality office premises in Moscow amounted to 21.3 million square meters. m, calculated in ILM. Of these, 22%, or 4.7 million square meters. m, - these are class A, 38% (8 million square meters) - class B+ and 40%, or 8.6 million square meters. m,- class B- (or C).

An increase in the vacancy of offices, which manifested at the beginning of the year, began to gain more and more pace in the III quarter, emphasized in JLL. The total share of free space increased by 0.8 percentage points. and amounted to 11.5%. In class A business centers, the share of free space increased by 1.2 percentage points. Up to 11.9%, while in prime facilities a more significant change was recorded-1.9 pp. up to 9.1%. In the class, the share of vacant areas has reached the maximum since 2012 and amounted to 15.6%. By the end of this year, due to low demand and growth in supply, the total share of free space can grow to 12.5–13%.

The vacancy level in the III quarter of 2020 continued to grow, confirm the data of Colliers International. At the end of September, the vacancy in class A increased to 9.8%, in class B +/- increased to 6.5%. According to CBRE, according to the results of the 3rd quarter, the share of free class A of Class A reached 11.6% (+1.6% to the beginning of the year), class B - 10% (+0.9%). By the end of the IV quarter of 2020, the share of free office space can increase to 11%, CBRE analysts predict.

In business clusters, Moscow can additionally free up from 250,000 to 332,000 square meters. m areas, the joint study of PWC and Habidatum said. The calculation is indicated from the two scenarios of the transition to remote work. In the first, half of the employees are allowed not to come to the office, in the second - to all employees who want to work outside the office on an ongoing basis. When normalizing the epidemiological situation, PWC and Habidatum expect to restore business centers to pre-crisis on the horizon of 4–7 months.

How much they pay

According to Colliers International, after quarantine and reducing business activity in the spring and early summer in the III quarter of 2020, the volume of rental and purchase transactions increased by 40% to 362,000 square meters. m. The total volume of transactions for January - September 2020 amounted to 876,000 square meters. m, at the same time, the demand between the buildings of class A and class B +/- was distributed almost equally (52% and 48%). Examples of large transactions made over the past period show that even in current conditions the parties can agree and conclude transactions, summarize in Colliers International.

97% of transactions in the III quarter of 2020 - rental of office premises (220 245 sq. M), indicate in CBRE. But according to the results of nine months of 2020, the purchase transactions accounted for 13%. More than half of the volume in April - June was formed by several major transactions, which were at the final stage of approvals by the beginning of the pandemic. For nine months of 2020, the volume of new transactions decreased by 24% compared to the same period last year and amounted to more than 870,000 square meters. m.

There is no significant reduction in lease rates, they say in Colliers International. Owners have a margin of strength and hope for stabilizing the situation. Including because at the beginning of the year the Moscow market was balanced in terms of demand and supply, with a low level of vacant, the rates gradually grew. In addition, the sublease market continues to grow. According to Colliers International, the volume of space offered in the sublease ranges in the range of 200,000-300,000 square meters. m.

This year, the requested rental rate has not changed, says Zimina. The reason is that there are few new office buildings, those developers who could postpone the construction or entry of facilities did it. Therefore, even taking into account the fall of demand, the proposal remained approximately at the level of the pandemic. The largest transactions of the year were made at rates exceeding the average (25,000 rubles per sq. M per year, according to Knight Frank), sometimes significant. A noticeable drop in bets is possible if the proposal will significantly exceed demand, and offices will stand empty at least a few months. But there are no obvious prerequisites for this now, Zimina believes.

“ In the III quarter of the company, the company began to actively revise the rental conditions of office space. Small companies that rented areas in the business centers of classes in +/-, due to the deterioration of economic conditions, began to abandon occupied areas. Part of large companies renting more than 5000 square meters. m in high -quality buildings in premium locations, due to the transfer of some employees to remote work, they also try to optimize lease costs, offering some of their areas for sublease ”

Vladislav Fadeev, head of the JLL research department

Retired, but not forever

The key factor in reducing demand for offices is considered to be a transition to a remote form of work due to pandemia. The tendency to a gradual transition to hybrid forms of work (partially in the office, partially at home or in coworking) has been manifested for a long time. But it was the total remotes that showed that it was too early to bury the offices. Spring quarantine again drew attention to the fact that offices are not just walls and furniture, but a space for uniting people, allowing to coordinate activities, communicate, exchange opinions, maintain corporate spirit and culture.

The HH.ru survey among employers showed that 76% of those who transferred employees to remotely in March began to return them to offices in July. Although in the summer there were reports in the media that some companies would leave employees at remote work until the fall or even forever, there was no noticeable migration. Only 3% of employers from the HH.ru survey do not plan to return to the offices and want to completely switch to the remote format of work. The employees themselves are not always delighted with remote work.

In addition, for a number of industries, a complete transition to remote work is impossible due to their specifics. Among such areas are banks and financial companies (according to JLL, they now account for about 40% of all high -quality office space), services of the services sector, the company of the sector of production and distribution, transport and logistics. The activity of companies with state participation has increased - and this trend will continue, according to Colliers International.

Among the VTIMES of large tenants, no one announced the transition to the full remote. The SBER and VTB do not plan to reduce the presence of employees in the office: now they are partially transferred to a home office due to epidemiological conditions, but there are no global decisions on changing the format of work. Sberbank also does not plan to reduce the branch network. In Mail.Ru Group, most employees are now working remotely, but there is no strategic decisions that such a format will remain, the company representative said.

“ In the period from March to September this year, we transferred all employees whose responsibilities did not provide for personal interaction with customers, to the remote format of work. Since September, we have introduced a hybrid format of work: employees choose the days convenient for them to work from the office, on average this is two days a week. We expect that the commands will use the office primarily as a space for intergroup interaction. We are still building a new building on the territory of Nagatino I-Land, which, upon completion, will unite teams from two central offices of the bank in Moscow ”

Vladimir Himanich, Head of the Raiffeisenbank personnel department

The “Tinkoff” of the hybrid format was adhered to before the pandemic: the company was originally built as a bank, and then as a financial system without branches, therefore, work through remote tools for it is organic, the company representative explains. The pandemic strategy was fixed: employees can come to the office if necessary or work from home. Team leaders themselves determine who needs to be in the office, who is not.

An increase in the number of workers from the house is not equivalent to a decrease in demand for office premises, emphasize the “demand for office real estate in the future” analytics JLL. They distinguish four factors affecting the demand for offices: remote work, the organization of office space, technology, and the features of the transport message.

At the end of the pandemic, the practice of compliance with the low density of seedlings will remain, expected in JLL: this will cause an increase in demand for office premises. In addition, more resources will be aimed at creating new sites for collaboration, which also compensates for a decrease in demand.

Less money, more offices

The choice of the hybrid format of work was not prevented by Tinkoff’s work to conclude a deal in the Moscow office market this year: the company entered into a lease agreement for 10 years 70,000 square meters. m in the Afi Square business center on the Belarusian. “ We do not plan to abandon the big office, because the company is growing very actively, the number of customers is growing. All plans for the office are in force, we are observing the construction, we participate in design, ”confirms the representative of Tinkoff. The entire room will take “Tinkoff Space” - there will be no space for working together employees of the company.

By the end of the year, about 300,000 square meters were supposed to be commissioned in Moscow. m of new offices, but at least part of them will open only in 2021. Of the large Moscow developers, no one announced the freezing of the construction of office buildings.

The construction and reconstruction of projects of the Kyiv Square group of companies, including the Nagatinskaya TPU, go as part of the planned schedule, the company said. In planned mode, the Safmar group passes objects. By 2022, the Class A business center will appear at the Cultural Heritage Object "Electrotheater" Forum ", the reconstruction of which in October of this year began the company Hutton Development. MR Group is going to build a high -rise multifunctional complex with a total area of about 120,000 square meters. M next to Moscow-City.

The business centers segment will remain in demand at least in the medium term, the partner believes Hutton Development Alexander Antonov. In the establishment of demand for offices and maintaining interest in them from developers, several factors contribute to:

Since 2014, new business centers were practically not built. The volume of commissioning of new facilities was about 100,000 square meters. m per year, which is extremely small-one or two large companies can occupy such an area. For comparison: the volume of input of residential facilities exceeds 5 million square meters. m per year. This led to the fact that the volume of vacant areas as a whole in the market was steadily reduced from year to year.
The product of business centers practically did not develop, since there was little new. Many offers-a product built in the 2000s or at best in the early 10s. This led to the fact that in high -quality BCs the vacancy reached zero.
The level of interest rates began to decline, which automatically increases interest in the product of commercial real estate.
The possibilities of financing from banks gradually began to increase. If 3-5 years ago no one was ready to consider the financing of the construction of an BC without a very large amount of their own participation, then the situation began to change.
The city practically reduced the payment for the shift of VRI outside the third transport ring, which influenced financial models.

The Chocolate House did not make systemic decisions on the closure of points in business centers, says Evgeny Prokhorov, director of business development: we look individually. “Does the popularization of remote work on traffic in the BC affect? Probably yes. But we believe that the influence will be noticeably a short period of time. When the company transfers a significant part of the office to the remote, it frees extra areas that other companies over time. Therefore, we have no obvious dependence [traffic from switching to remote control]. In the next 3-5 years, there will be no critical re-output. Even with remote work, people are not sitting all days at home, ”Prokhorov comments.

“ The significant difference between the crises of 2014 and the current one lies in the fact that the volume of [new] proposals in 2014 and in 2020 differs almost four times. After the crisis of 2014, developers with caution brought objects to the market. The current decline took place too sharply, so companies need time to make decisions to reduce office space, and there is hope for the resumption of activity. In previous crises, the peak of vacancies occurred 1.5 years after the start of the crisis, in the current situation we also expect a vacancy growth within 2021 ”

Alexey Kuchvalsky, member of the Board of Directors, head of the department of work owners of JLL's office premises

Offices of the future

Faced with the need to transfer employees to remote work, the companies undertook to rethink the future form, purpose and function of the office. The gradual spread of the hybrid format of work indicates that office spaces will continue to adapt to supporting corporate goals - communication and communication, exchange of ideas, etc. This means the emergence of a larger number of public spaces, client zones that act as a brand and culture showcase.

The value of the office as a separate office or desktop necessary throughout the working week and the entire working day will probably be reduced in favor of homework or coworking. This segment will be prophesied by growth, although so far in Russia it is only 1% of the total market. Despite the reduction in the number of transactions, the volume of rental transactions in flexible spaces grew, confirm in JLL and Colliers International. The largest transactions of the third quarter in this segment were the Rent of 4700 square meters. m in the Poklonka Place BC and renting by the FSK 3200 in the Midland Plaza BC on the Old Arbat.

Offices are empty, but there is no collapse on the market