The office market in Timisoara registered a slower pace, in line with the regional office markets across Romania for the past few years.
The local modern stock amounts to approximately 300,000 sqm, with headline rents ranging between 13.5-15 EUR/sqm/month.
During H1 2024, the total market activity amounted to 5,000 sq m, half of last year’s total market activity. This is significantly lower than the traditional ~30,000 sqm / year leasing volume in Timisoara. While Cluj fared better during this particular year, with close to 30,000 sqm let, if we analyze the main office markets outside Bucharest (Cluj, Iasi, Timisoara, Brasov) for the past 3-4 years, we will notice an overall slowdown.
If in Bucharest the leasing pace is strong, even accounting for the downsizing and renegotiation trends. The regional cities had a different dynamic in the past three years. The reasons are multiple:
- Switch in working patterns – hybrid/work from home allowed for employment across the country, with fewer reasons to secure regional hubs; that being said, companies still need a meeting and training point.
- Recruitment challenges: while in some cities challenges are represented by strong competition among employers that would drive salaries up in margin-focused businesses (strong presence in Iasi and Timisoara), others are more fundamentals – meaning difficulty in recruiting for the right technical skills. Timisoara’s authorities’ efforts to improve student housing, lifestyle appeal to youth, and increase net wages are crucial to the economic future of the city.
“The first half of this year was challenging; the office market being influenced by the macro-level evolution of the economy. However, the IULIUS company has a solid portfolio of partners, which has grown organically, and fluctuations in our network of office buildings have been minimal, managing to maintain a 100% occupancy rate. Particularly for this year, requests came from the medical sector. “
“We have succeeded in consolidating a unique specialized medical hub in the Iulius Town mixed-use project. The integration of medical operators required compliance with specific requirements much more complex than those of an ordinary tenant, because we are talking about spaces that must meet certain rigors. We are extremely satisfied that we managed, together with our tenants, to integrate all requests and have, today, an extended range of such services”, said Laurențiu Manea, Office Buildings Manager, Iulius Town Timisoara
Benchmarked against Iasi, one of the meaningful regional office markets, with 0 Class A square meters left during the first six months of the year – Timisoara performed by accounting for 15% of the office demand outside the capital city. The vacancy rate for the local market was maintained at around 14.5%. Besides the office component from Iulius Town, another important development is AFI Park Timisoara, a legacy project owned by AFI Europe.
