Experts spoke about the changing situation in the non-residential real estate market

Warehouses are popular again

When it comes to the real estate crisis, usually people think of housing, but there are other big niches – office, retail and warehouse real estate. The events of 2022 have changed the situation in this market: the demand for renting spacious expensive offices has dropped sharply, while warehouse space, on the contrary, is gaining popularity – sellers have again begun to stock large stocks of products. What are the prospects for the market in 2023, MK asked experts.

The fact that the classic format of working in the office is becoming a thing of the past became clear even during the pandemic. Recent events have only strengthened this trend – due to the fact that many foreign companies and tenants left the Russian market, the situation has changed dramatically. According to Ekaterina Belova, a specialist in one of the major real estate companies, a 40% decrease in demand for office space was recorded in 2022, and so far there are no prerequisites for the situation to even out.

– Most importantly, the request has changed. Today, small spaces are in demand. The most popular request today is an office for 50 people with an area of ​​500-700 sq.m, and not in the most expensive area. There are a lot of localized foreign companies that have decided to shrink their states by 3-4 times. If in the “past life” such a business rented 2000 meters, then in March 2023 – 600 meters. Very rarely, we hear a request for premises of 3-5 thousand square meters, but huge areas, from 10 thousand square meters and more, are requested only by state and quasi-state monopolies, the expert explained.

She also noted that the new trend is the short-term nature of all new transactions: either 3 years with the right of the parties to early termination, or 1-2 years. The share of foreign tenants in expensive offices in Moscow was significant, and now their outflow is very noticeable.

At the same time, another bright trend is an increase in demand for office space for purchase, rather than for rent. Those entrepreneurs who can afford it prefer to buy their own rather than rent. Now up to 70% of real estate is being built for sale, although in 2021 it was only 15%. The expert noted that the sad situation now in service offices is like coworking, only for a large company at once – many of them are returned to landlords. The main consumers in this segment were e-commerce services, but forecasts for the growth of profits of these companies did not come true.

Meanwhile, another segment of the market shows good prospects – warehouse real estate. According to expert Evgeny Bumagin, the instability of new supply chains plays a crucial role here.

– We are just getting used to living in new realities, we know that the simplest goods now have to be transported by district routes, delivery can take several months. The state is actively developing the idea of ​​parallel imports, but there are problems. This means that sellers need to have more stocks of goods in order to sell them. Warehouses are in demand for this, – the expert explained.

According to him, in 2023, about 50 thousand square meters. m of warehouse real estate will be released from tenants, and another 1.6 million square meters. m are being built and are being prepared for commissioning. If demand is at the level of 2022, then this segment of the real estate market can be called prosperous: demand was stable in the first quarter, and the average market rate is now growing.

As for the shopping centers familiar to many Muscovites, here, according to experts, one should not expect any fundamental changes. Of course, after the massive outflow of Western brands, the situation was ambiguous, shopping centers were idle, but now everything is leveling off. Turkish and Chinese brands are buying out the vacated premises, but most of the brands familiar to the buyer remain, simply changing owners – this is shown by the massive renaming of trademarks. In 2023, 15 new shopping centers should be commissioned, this is 292 thousand square meters, and a significant proportion of them are district shopping centers on the site of old cinemas. According to experts, it is especially important to please the consumer today – modern Muscovites do not like to travel far for shopping, but they will soon be ready to return to shopping: if people switched to saving mode in 2022, today we can expect a surge of interest in shopping. Consumer behavior in the spring of 2023 is assessed very positively by experts.