Pre-letting in Central London is on the rise

Pre-letting in Central London is on the rise, as companies look ahead to secure their future real estate needs in an undersupplied market.

An agreement between a potential tenant and a developer to lease a building either before or during construction, ‘pre-letting’ gives owners the benefit of de-risking their position. It also allows tenants to secure their preferred real estate and, in some cases, to have a say in the final condition of the premises.

Of the 2.3 million sq ft of Central London office take up in the first quarter of this year, 28 percent was undertaken on a pre-let basis, building on a significant increase in pre-letting volumes over the past couple of years across a number of sectors including media, legal, technology and financial services. At Battersea Power Station, 470,000 sq ft of space has been pre-let to Apple. Google, Facebook, McKinsey, Royal Bank of Canada and Sumitomo Mitsui have also pre-let buildings in London.

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