In the oversupply of offices and retail premises on the Belgian and certainly the Brussels rental market, rising energy prices are playing into the hands of unsustainable premises. Moreover, an inadequate building envelope and outdated technical systems also reduce user comfort. Ingenium can help you make your patrimony more sustainable, and thus keep it attractive and profitable.
Tenants in the office market are looking for 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 per m2 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 per m2 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 base his choice between A and B only 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.
But there is another equally important issue at play. If comfort leaves much to be desired due to poor insulation or non-optimal installations, the tenant of the property can go one of two ways. Either he increases comfort, but has to use more energy to do so. This of course increases operational costs. Or he keeps his operational costs under control, but the comfort for those who work there decreases. So the gap is widening between high-end properties - which can guarantee maximum comfort with sustainable interventions and the best energy installations - and lower-quality properties that can be marketed a lot cheaper, but where comfort is far from optimal.
So, as a landlord, it is important not only to choose the right market, but also to make sure that your patrimony is fully aligned with and meets the needs and demands of the tenant-users in that market.
On the basis of energy studies of the building envelope and the technical installations, Ingenium advises patrimony owners and managers on the right steps to take to make non-sustainable buildings perform well again in the short term, and to evolve towards CO2 neutrality in the longer term. We set up a pathway based on TCO that takes into account both capex and opex costs. Making sustainable investments is a smarter move than letting unfavorable buildings only at (very) low prices or not at all in the future.
Want to know more about this project and/or the possibilities to make your project sustainable? Contact our expert Dietrich Schildermans: sebastien.belpaire@ingenium.be - 050 40 45 30.
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