Decline in new UK commercial property construction work within private sector

The results of the EU referendum have been detrimental to the commercial property sector with the number of constructions continually decreasing, according to an analysis of the figures by Savoy Stewart. With figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showing a monthly decline in the number of new UK commercial construction work undertaken by the private sector since December 2017, the property firm analysed the number of commercial properties available to let in 20 of the biggest cities in the UK.

As expected, the city with the highest number of commercial properties to let was England’s capital city London, which had 6,137 properties in November 2018 available for businesses to rent.  However, figures from estate advisory organisation Colliers claims that 90 percent of London office availability is constituted by second-hand product, while new/refurbished availability is down by over a third in the past year.

Scotland’s capital city Edinburgh had the second lowest number of commercial properties on the market to let (133). And although Edinburgh’s figures seem to be less intriguing than anticipated, it seems Scottish commercial real estate has experienced a bounce back, with a total return of 1.7 percent in the third quarter of 2018; a 1.4 percent rebound in the second quarter.

The figures, which were extracted from property website Zoopla for the month of November 2018 also showed that The cities with the highest number of commercial properties to let in November 2018 on Zoopla were: London (6,137), Derby (822), Birmingham (724), Manchester (501) and Leeds (481).

The cities with the lowest number of commercial properties to let in November 2018 were: Preston (153), Coventry (145), Belfast (145), Edinburgh (133) and Newport (128).