Industrial property rents down 3%

The average rent was $4.6 per square meter per month. Demand for and occupancy rates of ready-built warehouses also decreased, mainly because exports weakened from earlier in the year, it said.

Rents for ready-built factories dropped by 3% year-on-year in the south last quarter, property services company Cushman & Wakefield said.The average rent was $4.6 per square meter per month. Demand for and occupancy rates of ready-built warehouses also decreased, mainly because exports weakened from earlier in the year, it said.

In the fourth quarter over 300,000 square meters of ready-built warehouses were built in the south, mainly in the provinces of Dong Nai and Long An.

With more ready-built factories and warehouses joining the industrial property market, rents are likely to move sideways, even decrease, in 2023 and the following years, Cushman & Wakefield forecast.

A recent note by another consultancy, Savills Vietnam, said fluctuations in the world production chain would continue with a decline in orders possibly affecting demand for industrial warehouses.

But the fall in demand would not last long, and would gradually improve from the second half of this year.
Trang Minh Ha, chairman of North Stars Asia Company, told VnExpress that the global macroeconomic instability could lead to weaker demand for ready-built factories and warehouses in the short and medium terms, keeping rents for industrial low.

He also pointed to a forecast by the General Statistics Office that high interest rates on bank loans and low demand in the international market would strongly impact Vietnamese businesses.