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At the beginning of 2014, the real estate company ARCO REAL ESTATE has developed for the needs of the domestic market an office space classifier that determines belonging of a property to well-established office space classes - A, B and C. The classifier summarizes the criteria used widely in Europe, adapted to the specific Latvian conditions and circumstances in order to facilitate the daily work of the stakeholders of the industry - owners, developers, buyers, sellers and valuators.
Commercial property industry actors often have to use a classifier, however, having examined the breakdown proposed by different foreign classifiers we have found local differences, which mainly relate to market size, the number of existing office buildings and concentration thereof in business areas. Since the requirements set for the office classification were unspecific, ARCO REAL ESTATE having assessed the dominant factors of the world and basing on the long experience in the real estate industry, adjusted twenty-two criteria to the Latvian market.
According to Mr. Guntis Kanenbergs, Head of the Commercial Department of ARCO REAL ESTATE, development of this classifier will provide a number of invaluable benefits: defining the classes of office space will improve the course of business transactions, facilitate the daily work of real estate professionals, as the office space in Riga is presented in a single catalogue which is freely available to anyone, and it will increase understanding of people who do not represent the industry. The above-mentioned industry expert also says that the classifier will be a successful tool which will make it possible to check the compliance of the established rent amount with the particular class.
A number of real estate professionals participated in the development of the office space classifier, the analysis of the international norms and the criteria arising therefrom, as well as in the adaptation of the criteria to the Latvian conditions, ensuring objectiveness and comprehensiveness of the contents of the criteria. The criteria included in the classifier are mostly borrowed from European countries, but the specialists, for comparison, have taken into account also the experience of Eastern European countries.
Asked why the classifier includes only three office space classes, excluding any finer breakdown, the representative of ARCO REAL ESTATE answers that although there is a common practice in the world to use classes A+ or A++ or, for example, classes B1 and B2, in Latvia, in order to simplify the accounting, it is more appropriate to use the breakdown in the classes A, B and C. The number of criteria applicable to Class A office space is supplemented with a list of compulsory criteria, specifies Mr. G. Kanenbergs.
21.01.2014.