According to a report by Capital Economics, office vacancy rates across Europe have varied hugely since the start of the recession, as in Q2 2008 Warsaw had a vacancy rate of 2.1% whereas Frankfurts was 13.2%.

You would assume those markets with the lowest vacancy rates would have seen small falls in rental values. However, the Paris market for example had a low vacancy rate but suffered the largest falls in the region, in comparison to Amsterdam which had a high vacancy rate but only experienced a small fall.

The report suggested that the level of vacancy rates in 2008 had no bearing on the prospects of rental values in the 12-18 month period to Q3 2009.

It would appear, according to Capital Economics, that rental values are more affected by rises in unemployment as France, Poland and Norway all had high increases in unemployment and steep falls in rental values. However, these three markets prior to the downturn had experienced very high increases in rental value growth.

The report said: Given that we think unemployment will continue to rise, weak occupier demand is likely to push vacancy rates higher and, ultimately, pull rental values lower.