Average deal size increases by 70 percent year-on-year
After the first six months of the year, the Hanover office letting market is fully on schedule: at 72,200 m², the market is not only 56 per cent above the same period last year and 24 per cent above its own five-year average. With a view to the take-up of up to 125,000 m² for the year as a whole expected at the beginning of the year, the capital of Lower Saxony has already achieved more than half of that. Larger deals in particular contributed a great deal to this, as while take-up increased significantly, the number of lettings fell from 94 to 86. The average deal size increased by 70 per cent from 493 m² to 838 m².
Alexander von Bülow, Branch Manager JLL Hamburg: “Hanover delivered the strongest first half of the year since 2022 and even achieved two deals in excess of 10,000 m², which had only been achieved once in each of the previous two full years.” At the top is NBank – Investitions- und Förderbank Niedersachsen, which secured 13,500 m² in the Riethorst Ensemble in the List-Podbielskistraße submarket. With this tailwind, the submarket conquered the leading position with a total of 17,500 m².
“At the same time, there is still a certain imbalance in the size classes, because as in the previous year, the larger segments are weakening. Only one deal was booked between 2,500 m² and 5,000 m², and between 5,000 m² and 10,000 m², as in the same period last year, none at all. This is due to both the demand and supply sides: Although there are requests and objects in the categories, expectations and quality rarely come together at the moment,” explains von Bülow.
The vacancy rate rose year-on-year from 5.8 percent to 6.6 percent. In contrast to last year, however, the increase this time is not due to a particularly large number of completions, as just 600 m² were completed in the first six months of the year. However, a further 33,700 m² will be built by the end of the year, which would then be a total of 51 per cent below the previous year’s value and 38 per cent below the five-year average.
Meanwhile, the prime rent is taking a breather. After the significant jump from 21.50 euros to 24.50 euros last year, the value has remained at this level since the beginning of the year.
