Savills Vietnam has been appointed as exclusive leasing agent for the office building Empress Tower located on Hai Ba Trung Street in HCMC’s District 1. Empress Tower will provide the market with some 18,000 square meters of office space. It consists of 17 floors and two basements, with space for banks and cafes on the first floor and the mezzanine floor. Rupert Provest of Savills said Empress Tower... 

Owners of serviced apartment buildings in the near future will have to face a much fiercer competition in attracting tenants as many commercial condo projects are shifting to offering the same housing service. Despite the stability compared to other segments, serviced flats will soon have to share customers with apartments that have been or will be leased out by secondary investors and project owners. For... 

Statistics on the property market will be more detailed as the HCMC government has assigned the Department of Construction to create indices on the property market in the city. The upcoming indices covering apartments, land lots and office buildings are expected to serve as a reference for agencies, organizations and individuals in managing and developing the property market. Apartments will be... 

Grade A and B office rents in HCMC are expected to recover from 2013 after plunging steadily over the past three years. According to Savills Vietnam, office supply will slow down in the coming time while demand for grade A and B offices for lease will keep rising. Truong An Duong, head of Research and Consultancy Department of Savills Vietnam, said the company bases its forecast on supply and demand... 

Developers of new office buildings have adopted a flexible approach towards rent fixing to spur flagging occupancy as dampened demand has taken its toll on the HCMC office market for three years in a row. The market has seen a shift in investors’ strategic trajectory. Landlords previously asked for high rentals but this strategy has become old-fashioned as they are more flexible in rent negotiations... 

Savills has been appointed as exclusive marketing and leasing agent for Apex Tower in a competitive market. Apex Tower’s construction started in June 2008 and expected completion in the second quarter this year with a total investment capital of approximately $15 million. Developed by Cavico Tower JSC and designed by RDC Worldwide Singapore, the 27-story-tower is expected to be a high quality building... 

Several investors of office building projects in Vietnam stuck in the dreary market have chosen to sell their products to companies instead of leasing them in an effort to recover capital as soon as possible. The move is deemed as unprecedented on the local property market. Petrocapital and Infrastructure Investment JSC (Petroland), which plans to inaugurate its Petroland Tower in the urban town... 

New office buildings have lowered leasing prices to attract tenants to fill up space given ample supply, said a property market expert. Adam Bury, head of research and consulting for CB Richard Ellis Vietnam (CBRE), said some new Grade A office buildings needed to reconsider their leasing strategies if they wanted to attract clients. HCMC’s tallest building Bitexco Financial Tower, for example,... 

The office leasing market is getting dull. Office rents are going down and are forecast to drop further. The area of offices for lease in HCM City in the first half of this year reached about 67,800 square meters, a drop of nearly double year-on-year, according to a market survey by CB Richard Ellis Vietnam (CBRE). Oversupply The drop in demand for offices owes to the fact that many companies had... 

Unlike the residential sales segment which has experienced a lot of difficulties due to a severe market downturn, the serviced apartment market has registered stable growth thanks to having a limited supply and targeting a narrow segment of customers, mostly the expatriate community. The leasing market saw positive signals and had stable growth during the first half of this year, with occupancy increasing...