Kleine Büromärkte

Abstract

Since the 1990s, at the latest, property markets in German cities have been analyzed and documented regularly and comprehensively. But this applies only to the top locations. There is hardly anything known about property markets in smaller cities, in particular office markets. A student research project at the Technical University in Hamburg-Harburg has looked into this matter. The initial presumption was that low rents and high yields could hardly allow successful real estate development. But, if project developers do not provide potential tenants with a sufficient volume of office space, demanding companies are forced to invest their own equity in owner-occupied real estate or to take available office space that does not support optimum performance conditions. Both alternatives mean disadvantages for local companies. The research project took place in the mid-size city of Braunschweig, where approximately 200,000 sqm of office space has been constructed since the beginning of the 1990s. Asked about thei...