Oh so predictable

PREDICTION season is nearly over and generally forecasters have been pretty gloomy in their outlook.

Jones Lang LaSalle’s head of offices Jon Carmalt predicted that take up in the Birmingham city centre office market this year is likely to be between 550,000 and 600,000 sq ft compared to 670,000 sq ft in 2011.

Now Jon’s a West Brom fan and they do tend to be glass half empty merchants but it’s hard to argue with his reasoning on this one. As he says, occupier sentiment is weaker than it was 12 months ago as companies are mainly interested in cost savings.

And, as he points out, there aren’t the chunky, named requirements out there at the moment that might make us think this could be a good year.

The outlook for sheds seems a bit brighter but mainly at the smaller end of the market where it is possible we might see some speculative building.

It seems unlikely that any of the big shed developers are likely to build anything speculatively given the supply-demand picture, the uncertain outlook in the retail market and the fearful prospect of having to pay a fortune in rates on an empty building.

It still seems that schemes anchored by supermarkets or hotels are the only ones getting away at the moment – think Shirley Parkgate, Hednesford etc – and we will have to see if the enterprise zones have much of an impact on the property market.

Meanwhile there’s a lot of positive news around Birmingham but much of it is too far in the future to have an immediate positive impact in inward investment terms.

So, on the face of it, it seems predictions that it will be a flattish year in commercial property terms are about right.

Here’s hoping there are a few developers and occupiers out there who don’t take any notice of predictions.