Mumbai Sees 23% Fall In New Office Space Supply Last Year, Numbers May Rise This Yr: Vestian

Mumbai has witnessed a 23 per cent fall in new supply of office space last year to 2.7 million square feet mainly as developers focused less on this asset class in the past few years anticipating fall in demand because of the COVID pandemic, according to Vestian.

Real estate consultant Vestian noted that a surge in housing demand over the last few years also played a role in lower new supply of office spaces.

Fresh supply of office spaces stood at 3.5 million square feet in the 2022 calendar year. New supply of office space stood at 7.5 million square feet in 2018, 5.3 million square feet in 2019, 4.1 million square feet in 2020 and 6.5 million square feet in 2021, the data showed.

Vestian CEO Srinivas Rao, however, expects new supply to bounce back this year as demand will rise with gradual return of employees back to the office.

Fall in new supply of office spaces and rise in the demand for workspaces led to a modest rise of 3.8% in rentals during the last year, the consultant pointed out.

“Strong fundamentals, emergence of other asset classes, and rapid infrastructure development is likely to keep the Mumbai real estate market buoyant. While the supply of office assets has slowed down in the past 3-4 years, it may pick up pace on the back of robust demand amid growing prominence of work-from-office mandates,” Rao said.

Mumbai, one of the most active real estate markets in India, accounted for only 6 per cent of total supply of 48 million square feet across seven major cities last year.

The supply has been on a downward trend since 2018, further decelerating due to COVID-19 in 2020. However, it increased momentarily in 2021 to 6.5 million sq ft, but again continued its fall.

“During this uncertainty in the city’s office market, developers re-strategised their portfolios. Other asset classes such as warehousing, date centre, and residential picked up pace on the back of robust demand post-pandemic. This significantly reduced the attractiveness of office assets in the city, leading to a gradual slowdown in supply,” Vestian said.

The rise of other metro cities as an affordable option to Mumbai has also played a pivotal role in putting a dent in the confidence of developers in the past 4-5 years, it added.