Premium office rents in Guangzhou dropped 10.1% in 2025, logging their sharpest annual decline since 2010, reports Caixin. This comes as cost-cutting firms vacated prime locations in favor of lower-priced alternatives.
The vacancy rate in the city climbed to 21.2% by the end of the year, up 2.4 percentage points, according to data released Tuesday by CBRE Group. Guangzhou’s slump reflects a broader retreat across China’s top-tier cities, where an influx of new supply is colliding with subdued corporate demand, says Caixin.
New supply of premium office space in Guangzhou surged 62.2% year-on-year to 551,000 square meters in 2025, while net absorption—defined as the total newly occupied space minus vacated space—slipped to 203,000 square meters. According to a separate analysis from Savills PLC, that’s 22% below the city’s five-year average.