Recently, shophouses (shops) to buildings perkantorand in Jakarta many are empty, so they are rented out or even sold. Why did it happen?
Responding to this, Observer and Property Expert Steve Sudijanto stated that the trigger for this phenomenon was the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, he explained several reasons for the empty office building.
First, due to decreased business volume and decreased work from office (WFO) volume. Second, the trend of working from anywhere or work from anywhere (WFA) which is currently rampant.
“With the habits that have occurred, to return employees to work 100% back at work, changing habits is no longer easy because all work arrangements can be done anywhere, work from anywhere. And that causes the volume of the work space to shrink,” he told detikcom, Sunday (29/1/2023).
According to him, with the shrinking volume of work space, the costs incurred to rent a place should also decrease.
“If the room is not used, then the empty room will become a burden due to paying for the service charge or common area maintenance. That’s why many companies are racking their brains, one thing is if you can rent it, rent it. Second, if you can sell it, sell it,” he said.
Steve explained that there are two types of building ownership, namely multi-owner buildings and single-owner buildings. Multi-owner building is a building that is owned by several parties, but there is still a kind of ‘chairman’ who owns the building. Meanwhile, a single owner building is a building that is owned by only one party.
According to him, single-owner buildings have more advantages in terms of renting buildings. This is because they have the flexibility to provide space according to the demands of prospective tenants.
“In terms of room demand, rental period, rental rate or rental fee it can be accommodated (by a single-owner building) compared to multi-owners strata title buildings, he doesn’t control the entire building. He has to report to (sort of) the head of the RT or RW ” he said.
Continued on the next page.
