How will office rents evolve?At least three foreign property management and consultancy companies in Vietnam, namely CB Richard Ellis (CBRE), Savills and Jones Lang LaSalle, ignored Cushman & Wakefield's forecasts. They share the view that office rents will remain firm or decline slightly rather than sharply due to strong demand. “We don't think rents will fall as dramatically as some are suggesting, particularly in the Grade A office sector,” says Brett. Ashton, Managing Director of Savills Vietnam. He says there is office space available here, but the supply is not redundant to cause rents to fall as predicted by Cushman & Wakefield. Toby Dodd, managing director of Cushman & Wakefield in Vietnam, says office rent in Vietnam will stabilize at $30 per square meter for grade A, $20 for grade B and $10 for grade C. These are the same as in regional cities such as Bangkok in Thailand, Jakarta in Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Manila in the Philippines. “That’s why I think office rents in Vietnam will be lower,” Dodd told the Daily after a real estate investment seminar in HCMC earlier this month hosted by the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (EuroCham) last week. CBRE Vietnam Managing Director Marc Townsend describes such a decline as a “collapse” if office rents continue in this direction. But he admits that current office rent is "extremely expensive" and is at least twice as high as in those cities. “We're not seeing a collapse in rents,” Townsend says, attributing high rent to the bigger problem of access to cheap land. and infrastructure in Vietnam. He also points to inflation, high construction costs and “extremely difficult” chances of obtaining a license as other reasons. “This is the reason why hotel, serviced apartment and retail rents in Vietnam are more expensive than in cities of the same population size or less.” Ashton says the rent will depend a lot on the quality, location and management of each building. However, it will take time for rates to come down, although Savills predicts Grade A rents will reach US$100 per square meter by the end of 2008. Townsend reveals Kumho is looking to break a number of records on the rental market. Ashton estimates the supply of Grade A office space currently stands at 75,000 square meters in HCMC and the latest rents, based on the most recent new leases in Grade A buildings, equate to approximately US$97 per meter square, service charges included, but excluding value. tax added.