Developing countries lead commercial property expansion

Sentiment towards global commercial real estate continues to improve with Latin America and Asia leading the way while Japan and the peripheral euro area remain near the bottom of the pile, according to a new survey published today.

gents in approximately three quarters of the countries represented in the fourth quarter Global Commercial Property Survey from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors reported greater demand from tenants for commercial property in the final three months of last year.

The quarterly guide to the developing trends in commercial property investment and occupier markets in close to 50 countries around the world also found that expectations for both rents and capital values on balance continue to improve. Rental expectations for the first quarter of 2011 are most positive in Latin and Central America and Asia.

The responses from Peru are particularly upbeat but, amongst the major markets, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Brazil lead the way. Russia also scored well on the likely trend in rents. The contrast to this is provided by Greece, Spain, the Republic of Ireland and Japan where the net balance of respondents continue to foresee further rental declines.

Source: Investment International