VietNamNet Bridge – The office rents have decreased by a half if compared with six years ago.

After many years of “settling down” at the Saigon Trade Center at No. 37 Ton Duc Thang Street in district 1, Deloitte Vietnam in early February 2013 moved to the new office building, Times Square, No. 22-36 Nguyen Hue Street, where it has the right to use 4,000 square meters on 3 floors of the building.

Deloitte is not alone. Real estate market survey firms have reported that in the first quarter of 2013 alone, a lot of A-class offices in the central area of the city were leased by big business groups.

The noteworthy thing is that most of the tenants are the old clients, who have returned after a period of leaving for other buildings.

Fuji Film has left Itaxa building on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street to the 20th story of Gemadept building on Le Thanh Ton Street, whiel Sabeco has moved from a building on Dong Du Street to Vincom Center.

Analysts have noted that there is a growing tendency of moving to the office buildings at the center of the city, saying that a lot of leasing contracts have signed between businesses and the owners of the buildings which are going to become operational in some more days.

Microsoft, for example, has signed the contract on leasing 774 square meters at President Palace. Currently, Microsoft sets its office at Petro Tower in district 1.

Shinhan Bank has decided to rent 3,000 square meters at Empress Tower, while it is very likely that the bank would leave the current office on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai streets to move to the tower once the building officially makes debut in the second quarter of 2013.

Techcombank is considering moving its HCM City branch’s office at Golden Tower on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai to the 34-storey building Lim Tower on Le Thanh Ton in the third quarter.

CBRE Vietnam has said Techcombank has leased the 17 lower stories of the building. Though the building has not been put into official operation, only 40 percent of the area is still vacant.

The tendency of relocating offices explains why the percentage of occupancy decreases at some buildings, but increases at others.

Bitexco, for example, has the leased areas up by 10 percentage points over the first quarter of 2012, while Center Point is down by 2 percentage points. Vincom Center is up by 12 percentage points, but Centec Tower is down by 1 percent point.

Greg Ohan from CBRE Vietnam said that the rents of the office buildings in the central area have increased to reasonable levels, which is the main reason that prompts enterprises come back to the area and gather their branches all together.

Previously, since the rents were sky high, the companies had to set up offices at different places. However, things have become quite different with the rents having bottomed out.

Real estate developers now offer A-class offices at VND635,000, or $31 per square meter, while B-class at VND370,000, which is just equal to 50 percent of that of six years ago.

In 2008, the rent was $80 for every square meter of A-class office, and B-class $40.

Le Thi Thu Huong from Savills Vietnam, said real estate developers now offer big preferences to tenants. The biggest offer Huong knows is the exemption of 8-month rents for a 5-year contract.

NCDT