The Belgian (rental) market of professional real estate such as offices and retail properties is under pressure. The ample supply allows potential tenants to be more choosy. How can owners make their patrimony attractive, profitable and retain its value? Ingenium can help make buildings more sustainable, making the right choices in the short and long term.
Tenants in the professional market seek maximum comfort for their employees at the lowest possible rent and operational cost. Both financial aspects in particular can weigh heavily in the trade-off between various properties. The energy crisis has put things even more on edge.
The value of a building is in correlation to its rental income. Let us take as an example a building A that is well insulated and in peak condition, and a building B in a much less good condition. If at A the cost perm2 is 100 euros and the rent is 1,000 euros, the property will be put on the rental market at 1,100 euros/m2. However, if at B the cost perm2 is 300 euros, only 800 euros rental income remains if the rental price remains the same. The landlord of property B is thus at a disadvantage both in the short term - rental income per month - and in the long term.
Now it seems as if, with the same rent, the tenant will only base his choice between A and B on other aspects, such as location, total surface area, accessibility, etc. However, if, as in the past year, energy prices rise sharply, the operational costs for the tenant of building A rise sharply. Anyone about to change locations or looking to rent a location for the first time will obviously not choose a property that scores poorly in energy terms. And a tenant with a current lease will do everything possible to stay within the established budgets. With rising operating costs, there may then be a demand to revise the rent downward. In both cases, the owner of Building B in the example draws the short straw.
Moreover, companies that rent premises must increasingly demonstrate that they operate in a green, sustainable manner, and these premises obviously play an important role in this. So for the landlord, obtaining a sustainable label is an asset because it makes the leased building more attractive - read: fetch a better price - on the market. And at the same time, the sustainable investments increase the value of the building in the long term.
It may be clear: the tenant's move is today, because there is plenty of choice. But at the same time, the owner should not sit idly by and better anticipate the future.
For example, is your boiler due for replacement? Then take that moment to look at the picture rúimer as well. Based on energy studies of the building envelope and the technical installations, Ingenium advises patrimony owners and managers on the right steps to take in order to make non-sustainable buildings perform well again in the short term, and to evolve towardsCO2 neutrality in the longer term. We set up a pathway based on TCO that takes into account both capex and opex costs.
The pitfall is to choose the lowest possible capex cost for every intervention. However, it is also important that a capex investment simultaneously leads to a reduction in opex costs, as this strongly determines the attractiveness of a property to the tenant (see above). By investing in higher-performance and more sustainable installations, you can save more operationally. This not only shortens the energy payback period, but also increases the value of your building in the long term. So making sustainable investments is a smarter move than letting unfavorable buildings only at (very) low prices or not at all in the future.
Meer weten over dit project en/of de mogelijkheden om jóuw project te verduurzamen? Neem contact op via sebastien.belpaire@ingenium.be of 050 40 45 30.
