Jafza rents fall as demand for work spaces drops off

Renta have fallen in Jebel Ali Free Zone. Pawan Singh / The National

Rents in Jebel Ali Free Zone district have fallen by a fifth over the past two years as Dubai’s slowing economy is prompting mid-size firms to shelve requirements for warehouses and logistics space.

According to the property broker Knight Frank, rents for the best warehouses in Jafza have fallen from Dh44 per square foot at the peak of the market in 2014 to Dh35 per sq ft at the end of 2016 as demand for Dubai’s most sought-after industrial and logistics space has fallen.

In its latest industrial market report, the broker blames “economic headwinds such as a low oil price, a strong US dollar and global instability” for a dip in industrial rents, which are often viewed as an indicator of a city’s economic health.

“What we have seen is a falling off in demand from the sort of middle-sized general traders which used to be taking warehouses of around 70,000 sq ft,” said Charles Swanson, a surveyor covering UAE industrial leasing at Knight Frank. “The big international players are still taking space and demand from small businesses is holding up but it’s the middle ground that has been hit.”

Knight Frank estimates values for these medium-sized warehouses have fallen by about 20 per cent from around Dh250 per sq ft two years ago to around Dh200 per sq ft today.

The broker says that Jafza has become a victim of its own popularity. The Jebel Ali Free Zone became a major part of the emirate’s economic recovery since the end of the global financial crisis 2009.

Soaring demand pushed Jebel Ali warehouse rents up by as much as 30 per cent in 2014, beating residential and retail property asset classes and prompting a surge of development activity with thousands of square feet of new warehouses and logistics facilities mushrooming up in the southern part of the world’s largest free zone.

In 2015 Ibrahim Al Janahi, the Jafza deputy chief executive, told The National that the free-zone authority was running out of space and looking at ways to extend outwards or build upwards to pack in more tenants.

Mr Swanson said: “For the free-zone authority it’s not a big problem because they tend to lease large land plots on long leases. The problem is really being faced by the people who have bought those warehouses and we are certainly seeing a big availability of warehouses on the secondary market. Last year you might have had two pages of listings for these things but now it’s more like five.”

He said the free-zone authority had also increased the charges it levies on tenants, pushing up costs for companies locating there. And as one of Dubai’s oldest free zones, many of the older warehouses in Jafza are starting to become obsolete as tough new laws place ever more stringent requirements on the sort of facilities needed to store different types of goods.

Overall, Knight Frank said, rents for class A warehouses in Dubai remained flat during 2016, while rents for poorer quality warehouses continued to fall.

In Dubai Investments Park industrial rents have fallen 7 per cent since the peak, dipping from Dh43 per sq ft at the end of 2014 to Dh40 per sq ft at the end of 2016.

However, Knight Frank said rents for warehouses in Dubai South had remained flat for the past two years at Dh50 per sq ft.

And in Al Quoz rents for warehouses increased by 2 per cent over the same period, rising from Dh49 per sq ft at the end of 2014 to Dh50 per sq ft in 2016.

In January Cluttons reported that although class A rents for the higher quality stock were generally holding up, Class B rents had dropped by 24 per cent in Al Quoz to Dh38 per sq ft, and by 14.3 per cent in Jafza to Dh24 per sq ft.

“Aside from a natural cyclical correction that was inevitable in the industrial market, a surge in newly completed warehouse space over the last year or two has prompted a flight to quality among existing occupiers, creating a growing pool of more secondary space, which is slow to let,” said Faisal Durrani, the head of research at Cluttons. “This is driving a growing gulf in rents between older stock and state-of-the-art, modern warehouse facilities.”

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