A new report on property markets in East China revealed that the vacancy rate of Shanghai's Grade A offices in 2016 rose 5.3 percentage points from the previous year, reaching 10.2 percent.
In the report, from global commercial real estate firm Colliers International, researchers said that declining new absorption, widespread retreats from tenants in the peer-to-peer lending (P2P) sector and new supply led the overall vacancy rate in the CBD to spike.
After the completion of 11 new office towers in central Shanghai in 2016, the total stock was up 7.4 percent year-on-year.
The vacancy rate in Pudong rose 2 percentage points to 6.8 percent while Puxi had 11.5 percent of its Grade A offices sitting empty and unused.
By the end of 2016, however, the average rent increased by only 3.1 percent year-on-year to 10.4 yuan ($1.50) per square meter. The rent in Puxi also increased relatively slowly, to just 9.5 yuan, due to retreats from many P2P companies. Rent in Pudong was up 6.2 percent to 11.9 yuan.
