It’s that time of year for peeping over the parapet to stare at the year ahead says commercial property agent, prop-search.

 The market during 2010 faced numerous challenges. The build up to the General Election caused a number of occupiers to delay implementing their property strategies and a combination of the emergency budget and the largest public sector spending cuts since 1981 also caused consumer confidence to hit an 18 month low during the autumn period.

 Throughout the second half of last year, bank property funding tightened considerably with all the major High Street banks looking to re-gear facilities or preferably exit existing loans. In some instances this resulted in bank considering more aggressive action when customers were in breach of convenants.

 Samantha Jones, a Surveyor at prop-search, says: "Speculative development funding is practically non-existent with pre-let developments experiencing difficulties in obtaining funding. The fragility of the occupational property market is not assisting the ‘risk factor’ that is inherent within any property development appraisal. This is making some schemes unfundable or leads the banks to suppress land values, which in turn, is stalling land transactions. It would appear that cash will remain king as we progress into 2011."

 Concerns about future occupational demand and the significant levels of supply evident in some sectors of the market resulted in an environment where competitive terms needed to be available to secure occupiers. Active demand in the market suggested that consolidation will be the key driver of demand going into 2011. Those companies with a lease expiry of break option during the year will look to take advantage of current market conditions with the possibility of relocating their business into better quality accommodation that offers increased flexibility and improved profile for the operation.

 Looking forward, we anticipate that demand during 2011 will originate from a wide range of sectors and the general level of demand will remain steady particularly during the first half of 2011. Rents for better quality space are expected to remain largely unchanged over the course of the year and a modest reduction in rent frees or other incentives available to incoming tenants is anticipated.

 The New Year for prop-search has already got off to the flying start with approximately 240,000 sq ft being contracted across the industrial, office and retail sectors of the market. As well as expanding its successful team with the appointment of an additional agency surveyor, Samantha Jones, at the end of 2010 - the company has also launched a ‘freshened up’ logo and website for 2011, with links to Twitter.