Counter Assertion

The worldwide and national economic downturn seems to be something of a double edged sword for office rentals in the Merseyside area. Liverpool office rentals are suffering a massive decline even in comparison to last year’s lack lustre office rental market.

Occupied office space in the city has dropped by over a third making it difficult for many rental office buildings to turn a profit. Well over three quarters of a million square feet of office space was taken up for the 2007 financial year, for 2008 that had dropped to around half a million square feet, representing a tsunami of empty offices dotted throughout the city.

And anecdotal evidence points out that it looks as though things are possibly getting words for the first quarter of 2009. Of course the more office space becomes available the more difficult it is to generate viable rentals from any new occupants that may be willing to take up office space.

As with other cities across the country the decline in rentals is even affecting some areas and even specific buildings to a different degree than others. The main business district in central Liverpool is doing reasonably well in fact they even managed to show a slight improvement in the first part of 2009 over 2008. The need for desk space in Liverpool is also in rising in demand as the popularity of desk space rental catches on.

Other less popular locations are not faring so well and an average downturn always means that some buildings are fully occupied whereas others may be suffering from a chronic availability of square footage.

As with all bad news there is a silver lining in that this is decline in rental values combined with a glut of available space is enticing some companies to consider Liverpool as a viable relocation point with some large scale office rentals having been taken up over the last few months most notably the Maersk companies decision to move its headquarters within the city boundaries.