Avanta Launches New Property Division

UK-based Avanta Property Management is headed by Richard Douglas.

UK-based Avanta announced earlier this month the start of their new division, Avanta Property Management. The new division is headed by Richard Douglas, former Managing Director of Managed Office Solutions. The new division was developed with the goal of assisting office occupiers who are locked into long-term property leases that have unusused space they would like to sublet to improve their financial situations. In a recent press release, Douglas said that pccupiers of leasehold office space, which had a rent review in the last 2-3 years, will in today’s market be paying somewhere around 40% more rent than current market rates.
 
"There’s a vacuum in the market that’s been created by a mismatch between supply and what potential occupiers actually need," Douglas said. His division looks to  address the gap between a conventional lease and serviced office space to the benefit of both current and new office space occupiers.
 
"There’s a healthy demand from businesses seeking accommodation for one to five years and for between 20-100 people, but these businesses are demanding flexible lease terms as they won’t risk making any long term commitments during the current economic downturn. Such deals are not normally a good fit with traditional agents, who can generally only offer secondary property options," he explained. "However, there’s a lot of Grade A property out there that’s being under-utilised by occupiers trapped in long term institutional leases and we believe that much of this property can be re-utilised to help bring small parcels of high grade property back onto the market." 

Avanta's new venture promises to be a good solution for existing corporate occupiers that have already made an investment in the infrastructure of a building, which will be offset by sub-letting. Avanta's deep experience working with both landlords and tenants will allow them to handle negotiations with landlords on tenants' behalf.

"Our new service will also prove attractive to larger companies that often consider themselves too independent to move into a business centre, as these often include services they believe they don’t need," Douglas said. "However, in many cases it’s the office manager who has to take on the responsibility of a major relocation and with no previous experience of such a major undertaking is forced to learn 'on the job' where there are potentially major pitfalls. The front and back-end hassles of set-up and re-instatement/dilapidation costs are often not taken into account; particularly double occupancy costs during these phases – which is avoidable.  

“We are set up to take the hassle out of all negotiations, both for existing occupiers and landlords, as well as potential new occupiers, and will deliver fully-operational space within six weeks on a build-to-suit basis. In addition, with our user-friendly short-form of lease we can also fast track the legal processes. This is a major benefit to new occupiers who can’t afford to wait months to conclude a traditional lease negotiation which could fall apart at any stage.

The very new Avanta division is already negotiating on a number of large occupancy deals.