The office leasing market sustained a strong momentum in the first half of 2025, with demand reaching 67 percent of full-year 2024, despite the withdrawal of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO), real estate advisory firm Leechiu Property Consultants (LPC) said Thursday.

“Demand has been strong for the first half of the year. We believe it will continue. We never know what will happen, but we are optimistic about it,” Mikko Barranda, LPC director for Commercial Leasing, said during the presentation of the LPC Q2 2025 Philippine Property Market Report in Makati City.

The Information Technology and Business Process Management (IT-BPM) took up 50 percent of the total leasing activity, or 365,000 square meters, in the first half of 2025.

Traditional industries, on the other hand, accounted for 48 percent, or 354,000 sqm, of the demand, while government offices took the rest of the share at 21,000 sqm.

At least 79 percent, or 581,000 sqm, of the overall demand came from Metro Manila, with Bonifacio Global City representing 146,000 sqm, while provincial demand was at 21 percent to 159,000 sqm, with Cebu covering 81,000 sqm.

Barranda reported that the net demand has breached more than 50 percent to 271,000 sqm of the firm’s projection for the year.

“Contractions are tapering off and net take-up in terms of what we have projected back in Q1, which we feel will be at 490,000 sqm levels, were already touching 55 percent,” he said.

In the absence of POGOs, LPC Chief Executive Officer David Leechiu said this surge is already the highest since 2017.

“We are all shocked at the amount of leasing activity in the first six months of the year that we have not seen those levels since 2017,” he said.

“These numbers are already happening without the POGO steroid factor. So, we can say that is the highest number of leasing activity we've seen since 2017 net of POGO.”