Savills is bringing to market a prime Dublin city centre office block with a guide price of €50m. Cumberland House is situated on Fenian Street just off Westland Row in Dublin 2.
Mark Reynolds, a director at Savills, said he expects a lot of interest in the property given that it has a full grant of planning permission for over 300,000 square feet and the fact that it is in a prime location. "It's the largest property of its nature to come on the market in this cycle. A lot of the sites in the surrounding area are only in the process of securing planning permission."
Mr Reynolds said the strong demand in the office market had re-emerged in very recent times, resulting in just 3% vacancy rates in the city centre. "It's only in the last 12 or 18 months that we've seen this resurgence in demand for office space. In fact, the demand in the past six months has been the highest in six years. Rents are up by 30%."
NAMA's Strategic Development Zone, or SDZ, is expected to satisfy some of the demand for prime city centre office space in Dublin. "It's only recently been adopted but you should see a huge number of landowners making applications in the final months of the year. Cranes should start appearing on the skyline in the next six to nine months," Mr Reynolds stated.
On the Central Bank plans to introduce caps on lending for house purchase, Mark Reynolds said he could see where they were coming from in their attempts to stabilize house price inflation. "However, the issue is lack of new stock and a lack of construction in Dublin. That's the issue and that's where we need to focus," he concluded.
***
MORNING BRIEFS - Today's meeting of European Union leaders in Milan today comes just a day after the IMF published a particularly downbeat report on the global outlook, but especially on the euro zone. It said the single currency area had a 40% chance of re-entering recession and added that there was a one in three chance of Europe experiencing a period of deflation. Inflation is running at around 0.3% according to the latest measure and there is no sign of the rate of price increases picking up.
*** The IMF has doubled its forecasts for growth for Ireland to 3.6% this year - but that is around 1% below even the Central Bank and the Department forecasts.
*** Yum Brands - the owner of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell - has lowered its earnings forecast for 2014 on the back of a food scare in China. The company is now looking at 10% growth, down from a previous estimate of 20%. Yum restaurants were hit in July when a supplier was accused of using expired meat in China. Yum is the biggest foreign operator of restaurants in the country and China is its biggest and most profitable market.
*** The Australian capital territory has been ranked the best place in the world to live in a poll by the OECD. Canberra led the regional ranks while Australia came in at the top of the country listings followed by Norway. The measure looks at nine categories including income, education, jobs, safety, health and environment.
*** Dublin listed property group Hibernia REIT is seeking to raise another €300m in an equity raise at 105 cent per share. The group has already invested nearly €400m and has committed a further €78m since its IPO late last year.
