Barcelona has registered its second best year in 15 years with the hiring of 399.000 square meters of offices in 2019, which represents 4.4% more than the previous year. These numbers were surpassed only in 2015, when the Generalitat carried out a rental operation of 50.000 square meters. With all of this, the offices contract in Barcelona can’t stop growing every year.
It looks like the forecasts for 2020 remain favourable for the Spanish real estate market. The hiring of offices in Barcelona is driven by the arrival of international companies and by the growth of those that are already located in Barcelona. With all of this, the Catalan capital is becoming one of the most attractive cities to invest in.
An optimistic scenario for the offices contract in Barcelona
Barcelona is currently shortening distances with Madrid, that closed 2019 with 2.5 billion. It should be borne in mind that the offices stock in Madrid doubles the Barcelona ones so the growth of office contracting in Barcelona during the last year has been very relevant.
This market situation allows an optimistic scenario, while in the last three months of 2019 two Ocado Technology pre-rental operations were materialized, the hiring levels are expected to remain high during the first quarter of 2020.
The boom of flex and coworking offices
Real estate investment of flexible areas grew in Barcelona by 47% this 2019. At the end of the first half of 2019, the hiring of flexible spaces already accounted for 22% of the total contracting of offices in Barcelona. In fact, large global operators, such as WeWork o Impact Hub, have already opened their flex projects in the Catalan capital.
Within the three major types of flexible space operators, we find coworkings, a booming working model. These spaces are no longer just places for freelancers o entrepreneurs, but have come to seduce even the small and medium-sized companies.
The coworking phenomenon continues to expand in Spain in such a way that almost the 30% of the total office market by 2030 is expected to become coworking spaces.
Low availability
With all of this, we must take into account that Barcelona has an availability rate that doesn’t stop falling to 4.29%. In districts such as the 22@, the offer reduces to 1.6% of the total in this area, levels that are similar to the city center ones, where we can hardly find availability anymore.
On the other hand, the NBA area (new business areas) has taken 48% of the total absorption of 2019. Faced with this alarming shortage of space, the periphery is an alternative for companies due to the fact that concentrates a 10.9% of availability rate.
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