Ranking of empty offices in Eastern Europe

10 feb 2011 Autor: Cristi Moga

Bucharest is in the middle of a ranking of Eastern European cities based on the area of vacant offices, with Budapest, for instance, having nearly twice as many empty buildings, according to ZF calculations, based on data supplied by real estate consultancy CB Richard Ellis.
Vienna and Prague also have more empty offices than Bucharest, while Warsaw has withstood the crisis better, with a lower stock of unoccupied offices than Bucharest.
Of the 2 million square metres of offices in Bucharest, around 340,000 square metres are unoccupied, with the vacancy rate seeing a major rise over the last two years, from 6.2% to 17%.
Consultants are hoping to see the vacancy rate down towards 14-15% this year, but for now around 80% of the spaces scheduled for completion this year have no tenants.