The average rental price of office buildings in the Philippine Capital Region will decline slightly in 2024, according to forecasts by Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), a real estate and investment management company in the Philippines. Although the current vacancy rate has reached double digits, and industry insiders speculate that this may be partly due to the relocation of local offline casinos, there is still more space available.

At a press conference in Makati City, JLL head of research Jan-Loven De Los Reyes said office rents are expected to average P1,000 per square meter this year. Before the pandemic, office rents in the National Capital Region typically ranged from P1,100 to P1,200 per square meter.

The expert noted that since 500,000 square meters of space will be available this year, the average vacancy rate will reach 22% this year, up from 19.9% in the first quarter.

From a geographical point of view, Parañaque City has the highest vacancy rate at 50.4%, followed by Manila City at 38.1%, Muntinlupa City at 28.3%, Pasay City at 24.1%, and Quezon City at 20.9%. 18.0% in Makati City, 16.8% in Pasig City, and 15.0% in Taguig City.

The vacancy rate in the central business district is relatively low, with 17.9% in the Ozarks Business Center, 15.4% in the Makati Central Business District, and 9.1% in BGC Global City.

In addition to increased supply, some companies have begun to scale back their space needs due to the adoption of flexible and work-from-home arrangements.

Despite this, the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry still accounted for 68.9% of the number of transactions in the first quarter, mainly including information technology services (37.3%), professional and business services (36.2%), contact services (17.2%), and finance Services (9.3%). Other enterprise customers accounted for the remaining 31.1%, including financial services (44%), manufacturing (21%), telecommunications (13%), construction and engineering (12%), and financial services (10%).