South cities see rise in vacant offices

Chennai: About 10 -15 per cent office properties in top southern cities are lying vacant. Office vacancies in these cities have increased, despite absorption.

Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai saw office vacancies increase by at least 4.2 per cent, 3.9 per cent and 2.78 per cent, respectively, in the first half of this financial year (H1 FY22) against the same period in FY21.

Hyderabad has the highest vacancy levels at 15.20 per cent against 11.30 per cent a year ago. As much as 4.5 mn sq. ft. new office space was added in the city in H1 FY22, according to a report by Anarock Property Consultants.

In Bengaluru, office vacancy levels increased to 10.75 per cent against 6.55 per cent for the periods. The city witnessed maximum new office completions in the period at about 7.3 mn sq. ft.

Chennai had vacancy level of 10.40 per cent in H1 FY22 as compared to 7.62 per cent in H1 FY21. The city witnessed new office addition of 1.15 mn sq. ft. area in first two quarters of the present fiscal year.

Prashant Thakur, director & head-research, Anarock Group, says, "Rising vacancies in the main southern cities can largely be attributed to increased new office space additions.”