博鱼体育集团

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The transformation of the office

This week scores of listed companies announce their first quarter results in what promises to be a reliable measure of how the recovery is developing. It's taking place during a staggered return to offices globally, so CEOs are naturally being questioned about how they view their office footprint changing over the coming months in light of changes to working habits.

The most eye-catching so far has been HSBC, which said it its office space by 20% this year.

Until now, it has been tricky to grasp exactly how reflective announcements like this are of the wider business community and that means for office markets globally. This morning, however, 博鱼体育集团 Frank will publish its annual (Y)our Space report, which includes analysis of a survey of 400 global corporates with a collective headcount of more than 10 million people.

The report is rich in information as to how the transformation of the office is progressing towards higher quality, more amenity rich space, which is less about the individual and much more collective endeavour. It also includes insights as to how office footprints are changing; some 35% of respondents to the survey anticipate their portfolio size being stable over the next three years, about the same as the proportion expecting to cut the size of their portfolio. Meanwhile, 30% anticipate their portfolio size increasing - two fifths of these are tech companies.

The report launches at 9am BST this morning. To watch the launch, register here.

The beginning of the end

As for the company results, HSBC's were also among . First quarter net profit surged 79%, which allowed it to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in reserves set aside for potential loan losses. The bank boosted its global growth forecast for 2021 from 4.8% to 5.6%.

Meanwhile, Visa results as spending on the firm's cards topped $2.4 trillion in the first quarter.

鈥淭he Covid-19 pandemic certainly has turned the world upside down in the last year, but we believe we are starting to see the beginning of the end,鈥� says Visa Chief Executive Officer Al Kelly.

Living in the City

The City of London Corporation will allow vacant office space to be converted into 1,500 homes, according to a new post-pandemic covered in the FT yesterday.

The City is famously protective of its status as an office hub, so the announcement has understandably generated a lot of interest as to whether this opens the door to large numbers of office to residential conversions generating more pockets of homes across the district.

The reality will be much more nuanced and will likely mean more homes around already established residential neighbourhoods, such as the Barbican and Golden Lane, according to 博鱼体育集团 Frank head of planning Stuart Baillie. The move taps into a longer term strategy to establish the City as a 7-day-a-week work, leisure and cultural destination.

Land shortages

Land supply shortages, planning delays and policy uncertainty top the list of barriers to delivery faced by UK housebuilders, according to a new 博鱼体育集团 Frank survey of 50 volume and SME developers.

A shortage of land appears to be a growing problem - more than half of respondents said that supply was "limited".

Although 博鱼体育集团 Frank agents report an uptick of activity with more sites coming to market in Q1 than in the previous quarter, the volumes remain far from sufficient to satisfy demand. There is depleted land availability as vendors have been unwilling to sell in an uncertain market and the planning system has also faced delays.

Land supply shortages, felt more acutely by the volume housebuilders, are leading to an expectation that prices will rise in Q2 - you can see Q1 performance here. Of the larger firms that said supply was limited, the majority were based in the Midlands (building 1,000 or fewer units) and South East regions (building between 250 to 5,000 units).

Renting for US$2 million a year

Despite the pandemic and political headwinds Hong Kong has retained its crown as the world鈥檚 most expensive city in which to rent a luxury apartment.

Prime rents in Hong Kong averaged US$6.7 per sq ft at the end of 2020, meaning a tenant with a budget of US$10,000 per month would be able to rent less than 1,500 square feet, according to from Kate Everett-Allen. The same costs would get you 2,899 square feet in London or 2,249 square feet in New York.

Earlier this year a house on Hong Kong鈥檚 The Peak rented for HK$1.35 million (US$174,000) a month, which on an annual basis equates to more than US$2 million a year.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg Hong Kong homeowners may sell as much as HK$150 billion ($19.3 billion) worth of property this year if a growing number of residents emigrate to the UK.

In other news...

A shortage of supply in the prime lettings market will hamper searches among senior executives in coming months as they plan their return to the office - see Monday's note. For more on how companies are planning for life after lockdown, Tom Bill speaks to Sacha Hawkins, head of the relocation agent team and diplomatic desk at 博鱼体育集团 Frank.

Plus, banks produce 700-times from loans than offices, JP Morgan wants bankers , global steel boom builds as overwhelms supply, US consumer confidence soars to 14-month high as house prices , serviced office group IWG ' to recovery', online shopping as Britons pound the streets after lockdown, China first population decline in five decades, and finally, European sustainable index fund flows for first time.

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