From BusinessDay

A report on the property market in sub-Saharan Africa prepared annually by Broll Property Services has shown that Nigeria is the most expensive market for the office space segment of the market.

The report explains that as against Ghana’s $37 monthly for a square metre in a Grade A office space and $26 apiece in Mauritius and Madagascar for the same period, a square metre in an Grade A office space in Lagos or Port Harcourt could rent for as high as $70 a month, making it 100 percent higher.

Broll, one of Africa’s leading commercial property service providers, claims that despite the availability of prime properties in major city centres such as Lagos and Abuja, the needs of some international tenants seeking befitting office spaces are yet to be met, thus increasing the rents of the available spaces as demand for same outstrips supply.

Looking at other sub-Saharan African countries, in Rwanda and Namibia, respectively, the rents are $20 and $18 per square metre, while it is between $15 and $19 in Kenya within the same period.

In Malawi, rent per square metre ranges between $13 and $6 monthly, while Zimbabwe’s paltry $11 per square metre has been attributed to poor economic climate as most office spaces in major cities remain vacant.

Written by Odinaka Mbonu | Read more at BusinessDay