The Manhattan boutique office market grew about 5,000 to 10,000 square feet across seven office buildings in the last quarter of 2018
In 2018, Midtown had 25 boutique offices change hands and of those, nine were purchased for office investment purposes.
In central Midtown, an 87,000 square foot office building was sold for $809 per square feet. In November, DLT Entertainment sold their 7,616 square foot headquarters. The buyer was unknown and is expected to turn it into a personal residential area.
The six transactions in 2018 totaled 238,785 square feet and $206.96 million in dollar volume compared to the five transactions of the previous year, which amounted to 119,492 square feet.
The five boutique office buildings recorded downtown in 2018 amounted to $195.87 million in volume, a 52% increase from 2017.
Coworking companies fought hard as they absorbed record amounts of office space in 2018 and quickly become one of the biggest occupiers of boutique office spaces. In August, the We Company became the largest office space occupier in the city with 5.3 million square feet.
Interest rates are expected to rise in 2019, which could cause a rise in transactions as investors sell assets in their portfolio in order to purchase more valuable core assets.
