The Manchester Office Agents’ Forum has predicted that Manchester office rents will start to increase as landlords are able to stop offering incentives attached to rents.

The forum stated that over the last quarter of 2009 almost 200,000 sq ft of desk space was let out, which was only slightly below the long term average, reducing the amount of total available space by about 15%.

Acting chair of the forum, Simon Reynolds, stated that given the more recent economic events the statistics show that Manchester has a large amount of strength below the radar and that the common view among property industry experts is that prime rents will start to harden and incentives will slowly stop being offered altogether.

The Forum believes that the Manchester office market will stay stable throughout the rest of 2010 with an average amount of letting during the second part of the market. New availability of office space from development will decrease to the lowest level that has been seen over the past ten years which will allow the landlord to be in favour during the letting process for the first time since the recession began in 2007.

Office space that is refurbished on the other hand will not fare as well during the second part of 2010 with a large amount of refurbishments slated to be completed thus creating a vast amount of competition.

In particular, terms will begin to harden in South Manchester as larger units for let become quite rare, with other markets staying subdued, such as Salford Quays.