Enquiry levels on EG’s Propertylink listings site last month were at their highest level since January, with industrial pulling away from retail as commercial real estate’s most sought-after sector.
The September Demand Barometer offers a precise breakdown by percentage of enquiries of the type of space and the geographical locations that are prompting interested parties to pick up the phone or send an email.
Sector overview
The industrial sector now enjoys a 1.5 percentage point lead over retail in enquiry levels on Propertylink, following a year during which the gap had consistently narrowed and was down to just 0.2 points in August.
Industrial saw its highest share of enquiry levels since June. And while retail is down by 0.3 points on its August share, September nevertheless proved to be its second-highest level of the year so far.
Office enquiries were down by 0.7 points on August and at their lowest share since May.
Sector demand by region
September was a strong month for the South East, which saw its share of Propertylink enquiries across all three major sectors increase, and it now accounts for more than a quarter of all office demand. Greater London and the North West also saw healthy upswings in office interest, of 4.1 and 1.2 percentage points respectively.
Greater London reclaimed its title as the most in-demand location for retail enquiries, at 21.1%, which it had lost to the East of England in August. However, the capital did also see a slight drop in share for industrial enquiries.
Scotland remained stable in its share of the retail sector, but it saw a 3.8 point drop in its slice of office enquiries and a 4 point fall in its share of industrial enquiries. By contrast, the industrial share was up in the East of England, Yorkshire and the East Midlands.
Regional cities
Glasgow, Birmingham and Edinburgh remain the most popular cities outside London for Propertylink enquiries, although all three saw drops in share compared with August. With a 15% share of all enquiries, Glasgow was down by 1 percentage point on its August tally, which was a record high for the year. Birmingham and Edinburgh saw even sharper drops, of 1.6 and 1.3 points respectively.
Key movers
On the south coast, the share of enquiries was up in both Brighton and Southampton, by a respective 0.5 and 1.2 points, although Portsmouth saw a decline of 0.4 points.
It was a good month for Bristol, where share was up by 0.7 points to 8.2%, and it now finds itself hot on the heels of Edinburgh and Birmingham.
Elsewhere the picture is mixed. In northern England, Sheffield saw a healthy upswing and Leeds was up slightly on September, but there were month-on-month drops for Manchester, Newcastle and Liverpool.
In the Midlands, Coventry almost doubled its share to 6% while Leicester saw a small increase to 8%. However, share was down in Nottingham.
Elsewhere, Cambridge grew its share of enquires by 0.9 points, while numbers went in the opposite direction for Aberdeen and Cardiff, and Bradford remained stable.
EG’s demand insights are powered by activity across our industry-leading commercial property listings platform – Propertylink
