The Office Agency team at CBRE Leeds is celebrating a successful first quarter this year, assisting occupiers on 380,000 sq ft of deals across Yorkshire and the North East. This success is a signal that occupier confidence is growing across the North in what has been an uncertain time for businesses following the Brexit decision in June 2016.
CBRE recently surveyed more than 100 major occupiers across Europe with pan-European and global operations and the results reveal that occupiers are less concerned about the impact of Brexit than they were a year ago. By late 2017, the proportion of occupiers worried about Brexit having a ‘very significant’ impact on their operations in the UK dropped from 15% to 6% compared with the previous year.
Equally, the proportion of occupiers worried about Brexit having a ‘significant’ effect has also fallen from 38% to 33%, meaning that the proportion of occupiers worried about negative impacts from Brexit has fallen in total from more than half (53%) to more than a third (39%). Those who are neutral about its impact in the UK has risen from a quarter (25%) to more than a third (37%).
Purely within the UK, levels of concern are understandably higher, but here too the 54 occupiers surveyed are becoming more relaxed. While 65% of UK-based respondents had ‘significant’ or ‘very significant’ concerns about Brexit in 2016, by late 2017 only 38% of occupiers were taking that view. Likely a reflection that the Article 50 notice had not been served and more uncertainty about the path of UK economic growth that there is currently.
In addition, the weak pound has attracted international real estate investors and tourists to the UK and boosted domestic exports, increasing demand for the office, prime retail, industrial and hotel sectors.
As a result, the Leeds Office Agency team has continued to thrive, completing a number of high profile transactions in Q1, including; Perform Media, a digital sports content and media company who leased OPTIM at White Rose Office Park, a 40,000 sq ft prominent global headquarters building; a 23,000 sq ft deal for Nike in Sunderland; a transaction on behalf of Pinsent Mason LLP to lease serviced office provider Gilbank; a 20,000 sq ft deal at One Park Row and more than 25,000 sq ft of lettings for Bruntwood at Platform to the likes of Reed Smith, Trillium and Zeal Media.
Jonathan Shires, Senior Director for the Office Agency team at CBRE Leeds, commented:
“We are delighted to announce our team’s strong Q1 performance with a range of significant, high profile deals completed for landlord and occupiers alike in this period. In addition we are presently advising occupiers on projects totaling a further 300,000 sq ft which really goes to show that optimism and occupier confidence is on an upward trajectory in 2018.”
