Well, well, well, it seems we have a bit of a local tiff on our hands. Two week ago we reported that Cambridge's quarter two office figures were the worst for nearly a decade. Some don't agree with those figures and claim they have the definitive answer.
Lambert Smith Hampton sent us its quarter two figures today (seen for the first time here) and it reckons that quarter two take-up was broadly equal to quarter one at 106,252 sq ft keeping it on target to end this year just below the five year average of 460,500 sq ft. Deals such as Spicers signing for 23, 000 sq ft at Building 1000 on Cambridge Research Park have helped matters. If Mott MacDonald, which is closing in on 44,000 sq ft at Brookgate's CB1, actually sign that deal that could also help year end figures.
In addition it says that a further 175,000 sq ft is under offer.
That said while 27 deals signed - making the average deal size a fairly mean 4,000 sq ft, which is almost half last year's figure - this quarter's figure is down 30% on the same period last year. TMT occupiers continued to dominate transactions accounting for half of all deals signed.
It predicts take-up for 2012 will be 450,000 sq ft.
So, we hand it over to you now. Lambert Smith Hampton's figures are roughly double Carter Jonas*. Who do you think is right? click on the survey or leave a comment (anonymous or otherwise) below.
* UPDATED 18/7/12 12:00: Carter Jonas has been in touch to clarify its position. CJ says that is only reports deals that have actually completed rather than those under offer as it feels this gives a true representation of the market rather than a prediction of where it is. It says deals such as the Spicers deal has not yet completed (Cambridge Research Park's agents Bidwells has also confirmed this, saying the deal has exchanged but it expects the deal to complete in late September) so did not go into its Q2 figures.
We have, of course, put in a call to LSH to clarify its position and will update when we hear back.
**UPDATED 18/7 13:00: I have just got a statement from LSH in. Duncan Quig, associate director at the firm, who put the figures together says:
"My figures include completed deals only. Spicers deal has exchanged on an agreement for lease and this is the point of sale at which we record deals for take up purposes. We did so for the Microsoft deal which of course was an agreement for lease with the actual lease not yet commenced.
We have not included the Mott MacDonald pre-letting as this is clearly a deal which is in discussion an the only knowledge I have of this is market rumour in any case.
LSH undertake quarterly research to a very high standard and level of detail and I can be supremely confident in the accuracy of our figures.
I guess there will always be discrepancies between statistics due to differences in definitions, area of coverage and extent.
In my view 2003 was clearly the worst year for take up in the last decade when total take up for the entire year amounted to 223,000 sq ft. At the end of Q2 2012 we have recorded 202,000 sq ft. "
Picture by JD Hancock on Flickr
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