HK office rents 60% higher than in New York

helped trigger the past two recessions.

A Fed report last week said it viewed financial-stability concerns as moderate, citing commercial real estate, corporate debt and leveraged loans among the potential issues.

“There is a less traditional kind of overheating that worries the Fed, which is financial excesses, especially non-financial corporate borrowing,” said Jonathan Wright, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a former Fed economist. “The Fed is acutely aware that the overheating that ended the last two cycles was in finance, not in wages and prices.” — Bloomberg SINGAPORE: Hong Kong’s Central area has taken the prize for the world’s most expensive premium office rents for a fourth year running, according to global real estate consultant JLL.

Occupancy costs – including rent, taxes and service charges – are 60% higher than New York’s Midtown and almost 75% more costly than London’s West End, JLL’s Premium Office Rent Tracker, which crunches data in the premier office districts of 61 cities, shows.

If you’re looking for somewhere cheap to base your business, best head to Africa.

Office rents in Johannesburg are just US$20 per sq ft per year, and not much more expensive in Nairobi.

Kuala Lumpur is also pretty cost competitive, as is Manila.

Premium office rents refer to the “top achievable” in units over 10,000 sq ft in key buildings in the prime office districts of each city, JLL said. — Bloomberg