While 20 on Hatch, which is for sale at €26.5m, occupies a prime location in Dublin's central business district, it will require investment if it is to match the ESG scores of new-build officesIreland’s investment property market limped out of the blocks with just €160.5 million of income-producing assets changing hands in the first quarter of 2024.
At the same time there has been a compositional shift towards cheaper regional markets, segments where the price-adjustment process is further advanced, and buyers who have an appetite for ‘wet’ investments that require more asset management.Empty since 2015: what is happening with Dún Laoghaire’s former ferry terminal?
The tech-hiring slowdown will pass in due course and, as an established global tech hub, Dublin’s office market will benefit. But other factors impacting the office market are longer-term and more structural in nature. Compounding the challenge of sluggish tech leasing, remote working has weakened the link between job growth and office demand.
All of these factors are weighing on the prices that are being achieved in transacted office deals. In many cases, however, bid-ask spreads have been too wide for deals to happen because of vendors’ reluctance to accept lower prices in the absence of comparable evidence. This is particularly the case in the prime Dublin city centre market where no new-build offices have been sold since the third quarter of 2022.