CB Richard Ellis, the world's leading real estate advisor, has announced that the take-up in the first three quarters of 2008 in the European data center market reached 93,000 m² across the five tier 1 markets.
Andrew Jay, Head of Technology Practice Group, CB Richard Ellis, said: "The high level of take-up witnessed in the first three quarters of 2008 is illustrative of the data center market being less affected by the financial slowdown than other real estate markets. As such, we expect take-up for the full year to approach the levels of 2007, which had been a record year in the data center market."
Total market take-up for Q3 was 28,940 m², a decrease on the previous quarter of 36%, however it represented an increase on the same quarter in 2007 of 25%. The majority of take-up in quarter three was in the Carrier Neutral Hotel (CNH) market, 15,940 m² (55%). A large shell deal in the Paris market of 13,000 m² represented 45% of the total.
In terms of take-up by market sector, 14,820 m² (51%) was from the corporate sector; 9,660 m² (33%) was in the technology sector, 4,060 m² (14%) was in retail transactions and 400 m² (1%) was from system integrators.
Total stock levels in the Carrier Neutral Hotel (CNH) market increased from 570,740 m² to 620,990 m², an increase of 50,250 m² (9%) since quarter two. This increase was due to the introduction to the statistics of new facilities in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris. As a result, CNH availability increased from 132,870 m² to 167,490 m². Total CNH market vacancy stood at 26.97% with a fully-fitted vacancy rate of 13.46%.
Andrew Jay, continued: "Given the turmoil in the wider real estate market, the data centre market is performing beyond our original expectations for 2008. We do not expect this high level of demand to continue as strongly in 2009, but we do not envisage the level of decline experienced in other real estate sectors."
Source: FD
