hyderabad a fresh surge in covid19 cases seems to have put brakes on hyderabads commercial real estate sector racing towards a fast recovery post pandemic during the end of 2020 the citys office space absorption plummeted by 61 between january and march 2021 q1 shows the latest office market report released by global real estate services firm jones lang lasalle jll on thursday between october and december 2020 q4 hyderabad witnessed a net absorption of 283 million square feet sft of office space this dropped to 109 million sft in the first three months of the new year the report revealed experts attribute this to uncertainty in the market with respect to resumption of business as usual occupiers continued to adopt a cautious approach and focused on reassessing their real estate portfolios and longterm commitments to add to the woes increasing fears of a spike in covid19 cases in the second half of march further pushed occupiers to press pause again and postpone their real estate decisions said samantak das chief economist and head of research and reis jll indiacompletion of new projects too took a hit in the city with numbers slipping from 372 million sft october to december 2020 to 22 million sft january to march 2021 on the bright side hyderabad fared better than many major metros as the city along with bengaluru and delhincr accounted for 80 of all office absorptions recorded during first three months of the year in sync with net absorption the markets of bengaluru hyderabad and delhi ncr accounted for nearly 80 of new completions during the quarter the report said top seven metros are expected to see a net absorption of around 30 million sft in 2021 at par with average annual net absorption levels seen during 20162018 said das