Hotfoots it to Mayfair - Mayfair Times

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APOLLO REAL ESTATE HAS TAKEN 7,000 SQUARE FEET
ON THE FIRST FLOOR OF 50 NEW BOND STREET. THE
SCOTTISH WIDOWS INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP REAL
ESTATE SCHEME BUILDING IS NOW FULLY LET ONLY
EIGHT MONTHS AFTER COMPLETION. OTHER
TENANTS INCLUDE POLO RALPH LAUREN,
ATOMICO AND VARDE PARTNERS.
H2SO, DTZ AND JONES LANG
LASALLE WERE THE
LEASING AGENTS
Survey the market
WHO OWNS MAYFAIR? The usual answer is Grosvenor, and
it is true that the privately owned property group is the
largest single owner in the square kilometre.
What’s less well known is that the Berkeley Square
Estate – run by Lancer Property Asset Management – is
owned by Middle Eastern investors, and that the City
Corporation owns property in Mayfair too – in New Bond
Street, Conduit Street and South Molton Street for instance.
Institutional investors – insurance companies and
pension funds – hold Mayfair properties in their investment
portfolios and there’s a healthy scattering of buildings
owned by wealthy private investors, including several
Middle Eastern families.
There’s strong demand for retail units in Mayfair and
data on shop rents – Zone As – is widely available. The
same is not true for office space and both quality and
price vary.
Above 2,000sq ft, the market is well researched and
prices tend to stabilise. In smaller units – and in Mayfair,
much of the office space is in smaller units – quoted rents
can differ by tens of pounds per square foot from building
to building, depending on ownership and the incoming
tenant’s property experience.
As we went to press, the headline rent – the top rent
anybody is likely to pay – was estimated at £90 per square
foot, although Grosvenor had good space on offer in
Balderton Street at £52.50 and the lowest rent we spotted
was £25 per sq ft in a 600sq ft office on Maddox Street.
There are only two ways to make sure you get a
cracking deal: spend a couple of months studying the
market, or use a chartered surveyor.
There is a temptation to save the cost of a chartered
surveyor and go it alone. The danger of that is that you end
up paying over the odds – bear in mind that £5 extra per
square foot on 500sq ft over five years is £12,500. The
numbers can add up even on small space.
If you’re looking to move – and the “churn” of office
tenants in Mayfair is huge – you cold do worse than use a
surveyor who is a Mayfair specialist. Those that have
advertised with us in this issue are all reputable companies,
and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has a finda-surveyor
facility on its website, www.rics.org.