Most office occupiers want to lease new office space, says survey

Trend seen due to stable rent, growth in rent in 2014

Majority of office occupiers want to lease new office spaces within a year's time due to stable rents and expected growth in rent in 2014 , says findings from a new survey.

According to the survey by property consultancy DTZ, 38% of the respondent seeking office space are looking to lease space within 6-12 months while 35% said they want to book space over 12 months. Twenty 7% said they want to book space within 3-6 months.

"As opposed to last year when half of the occupiers surveyed indicated that they did not expect to lease new space for at least 12 months, this year the majority of respondents seeking new office space indicated they are likely to take up new space within the year," said Rohit Kumar, head of Indian research and Divya Sirohi Badola, manager, research said in a note.

"Part of the driver for this is that occupiers expect rents to remain stable in the short term before returning to growth in 2014. In essence, there is currently a window of opportunity to realise cost savings, upon which occupiers are seeking to capitalise," Kumar and Badola said.