New figures show that leasing activity in the Dublin office market in the third quarter of this year was the highest volume of third quarter take-up achieved in Dublin since 2007.
Commercial property consultants CBRE Ireland said that a total of 82,736 square metres of office leasing agreements were signed in the Dublin market in the third quarter of 2016.
CBRE said this brings the take-up in the first nine months of the year to 172,377 square metres in 198 individual leasing transactions.
The property consultants said the annual average volume of take-up in the Dublin office market over the last 10 years is 175,000 square metres a year, meaning a year's take-up has occurred in the capital in the first nine months of 2016 alone.
Prime rents in Dublin city centre are now in the order of €645 per square metre (€60 per sq. ft.), up from €546 per square metre the same time last year.
Today's figures show that tenants in the computer and high-tech sector accounted for 33% of office deals signed in Dublin during the months from July to September and 29% of overall take-up in the first nine months of the year.
Financial services tenants accounted for 8% of take-up and 14% of take-up in the year-to-date, while business services tenants accounted for 25% of leasing activity in Dublin in the last three month period and 17% of leasing in the capital in the first nine months of the year.
Meanwhile, vacancy rates in Dublin fell in the third quarter with the Grade A office vacancy rate in Dublin 2/4 at about 2.1% at the end of September. The overall rate of office vacancy in Dublin is now 7.62%.
Marie Hunt, executive director and head of research at CBRE Ireland, noted an increase in the number of enquiries from potential occupiers looking at the feasibility of locating some operations in Dublin following the surprise Brexit referendum result in June.
Ms Hunt said that most of these enquiries are still quite preliminary scoping exercises with any increase in transactional activity emanating purely as a result of Brexit unlikely to materialise in the short term.
"Potential occupiers are comforted by visibility on future office supply in the capital considering the number of office schemes that are currently under construction or at various stages of the planning process which can be delivered if required," she added.
By the end of September, there were 29 office schemes under construction in the city. 23% of this stock has already been pre-let.
