Net demand becomes, after disruptions such as the pandemic, an extremely important indicator to understand the trends in the office real estate market in Mexico.

The result of debiting gross demand with unemployment makes it possible to measure not only a variable of propensity to occupy spaces in the short term, but also incorporates future confidence to continue to be maintained in the medium term.

When this indicator shows, after several periods of recovering, that confidence is gaining ground. A phenomenon observed in the pandemic was that tenants faced with marked uncertainty did not generate long-term plans.

Thus, the corporate market of Monterrey, Guadalajara and Querétaro have already had at least four quarters with positive values.

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In Monterrey, the largest net absorption of the last four years had been registered in Solili precisely in the first quarter of 2020 with almost 60 thousand square meters, a turning point where the pandemic broke out. So far in the last year, net demand has moved between 10 and 20 thousand square meters, while vacancy closes ranks, decreasing by 4.16 percentage points and registering 17.9% at the end of June 2022.

In the case of Guadalajara, in the second quarter of 2018, the highest demand of the last 4 years had been registered with almost 32 thousand square meters, although the average of the last four quarters is around 10 thousand square meters.

Querétaro, for its part, in 3Q 2021 had registered its maximum net demand of 34 thousand square meters during the last four years and throughout the post-pandemic period it has registered average levels of close to 8 thousand quarterly square meters.

Mexico City, due to the importance of inventory size and what it represents for the institutional maturity of the corporate business, is the one that has shown the most ups and downs. 

When it already seemed that net demand was on the path of recovery, having a progressive decrease since 1Q 2021, which although it indicated negative figures, it had been closing the gap until reaching a positive figure in 4Q 2021 of 67 thousand square meters, marked a setback to closing of 1T 2022 where the spaces that were vacated far exceeded the space that was demanded.

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This turning point was caused by the uncertainty brought by the new strains of contagion that once again reduced the return to offices with confidence at the beginning of 2022, but which has already been assumed by the companies as a situation that will remain and with the decisions will have to be made from now on.

A separate case is made up of the corporate market in Tijuana, which remained even in the pandemic and subsequent periods with positive net demands always around 5 thousand square meters quarterly, except for 1Q 2022 where very little activity was generated.

In general terms, indicators such as the low start-up of new projects have influenced the takeoff of net demand in these markets where the rental price has had reasoned adjustments, such as the case of Monterrey, which has practically maintained its rental price, or Guadalajara, Puebla. and Mexico City with downward adjustments of 7.5%, 3.4% and 1.4%, respectively in annual terms.

This recovery of net demand also affects the recovery of the annual rental price that markets such as Tijuana and Querétaro exhibit around 3%.