March 25, 2015. The share of Class A offices in Yekaterinburg that have no tenants at the moment came to 23% at the end of 2014; besides, 11% of Class B+ offices and 14% of Class B ones remained unused as well, Ural Chamber of Real Estate reports.

The Chamber’s analyst Konstantin Oktayev explains the downward trend hit the office space market as early as one year ago, when both supply and demand shrank noticeably.

‘Should the Central Bank’s key interest rate remain so high for a long time, the office space market risks losing up to 30% of actual and potential customers,’ Oktayev says.

68,000 m2 of office space got commissioned in Yekaterinburg last year. A visible shrinking of the market is the current dominant trend that is likely only to keep getting stronger in the short term.

In 2014, new office space got built at a much faster pace than that with which it could be absorbed by the market. The two processes used to unfold with equal speed in 2012 and 2013, yet in 2014, tenants were found for only 49,000 m2 out of 68,000 m2 of newly commissioned office space.