India’s Top Cities Could Lease 3 Million Square Feet This Year

A new Colliers report has found that flexible workspace operators are anticipated to lease around 3 million square feet across India’s top six cities this year.

In 2020, operators leased around 2.9 million square feet largely led by the technology and banking industries. 

Now, firms are focused on engaging enterprise clients looking to cut down their real estate footprint.

Although a big portion of the workforce continues to work from home, operators say they have around 65% of their seats leased, indicating promise for the future of the industry.

Taking out long-term office leases is still being viewed as risky for corporate occupiers, so many are looking towards leasing desks in flexible workspaces to avoid any long-term expenditures.

Employers are even looking to adopt more of these spaces outside of metropolitan areas and in secondary cities where many employees live. This allows workers to continue avoiding their lengthy commutes, but also provides them an engaging place to work in.

“Flexible workspaces are here to stay, with their share growing in the real estate pie. Though 2020 was muted for the growth of flexible workspaces, markets like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai continue to drive demand,” said Arpit Mehrotra, Managing Director of Office Services (South India) at Colliers. “Further, enterprises are also driven by the desire to offer locational flexibility to some of their employees and functional departments.”