Top 9 cities see 2.5% fall in office space leasing during Jul-Sep; 40% drop in Bengaluru: CBRE

Gross office leasing across 9 major cities dipped 2.5% during the July-September period to 19.9 million square feet, mainly due to subdued demand in South India, according to CBRE.

The gross office space leasing stood at 20.4 million square feet in the year-ago period.

Real estate consultant CBRE, in its latest repor,t pointed out that the gross leasing of office spaces in Bengaluru fell to 4.3 million square feet during the July-September period from 7.2 million square feet in the year-ago period.

In Hyderabad, the leasing activities declined to 2.2 million square feet from 2.6 million square feet.

Chennai too saw a fall in gross office leasing to 1.5 million square feet from 2.4 million square feet.

However, the office demand in Delhi-NCR rose to 3.8 million square feet from 2.4 million sq ft.

The gross leasing of office space in Mumbai increased to 4 million square feet from 2.9 million square feet, while the demand in Pune rose to 3.2 million square feet from 1.9 million square feet.

In Kolkata, the office leasing remained flat at 0.6 million square feet.

Ahmedabad saw a decline in demand to 0.1 million square feet from 0.3 million square feet.

However, in Kochi, the office leasing during the quarter stood at 0.2 million square feet as against 0.07 million square feet in the year-ago period.

As per the CBRE data, the fresh supply of office spaces also fell marginally to 13.6 million square feet during the third quarter of this calendar year from 14 million square feet in the corresponding period of the preceding year.

India's office market, which suffered badly during the COVID pandemic, has been performing well since 2022, thanks to rising demand for workspaces from foreign firms looking to set up Global Capability Centres (GCCs).

The demand for co-working spaces has also risen in the past three years.