Chart of the Day: Business parks' vacancy rate eases to 14% in Q2

This was due to stable demand and lack of new supply.

This chart from Savills shows that island-wide vacancy rate for business parks fell 0.4 ppt to 14% in Q2, attributed to stable demand and lack of new supply.

International Business Park reported a record-high vacancy rate of 30.2% in Q2 , whilst the vacancy rate of Changi Business Park jumped 1.2 ppt QoQ to 14.1% over the same period.

Also read: Industrial property occupancy rates inched up 0.6 pp in Q2

Meanwhile, occupancy at the newer business parks such as Mapletree Business City and one-north remained healthy due to their favourable locations and high-end specifications. New entrants include American agritech firm Corteva Agriscience, which opened its Asia Pacific head office at Biopolis in May.

In contrast, ageing clusters continued to exhibit poor occupancy due to weakening demand.

Rent-wise, Savills reported that declining rents in older clusters suppressed overall rental growth whilst rents in newer cluster remained buoyant. Overall, the average monthly rent for business parks in general remained unchanged from the previous quarter at $4.05 psf.