Retail property tenants are struggling to keep afloat
Retail, as we all know, was always going to be one of the first market’s that was hit when the credit crunch began to have a greater impact on our daily lives. With the cost of living going up those iPhones and Chloe handbags are just going to have to wait!
Think for one moment about how the retailers themselves must feel. Sales volumes dropped by 3.9% between May and June 2008, that’s the biggest decline since 1986! You can surely understand then, why some retailers are asking for the rental instalments of their retail premises to be changed to monthly. Shockingly though instead of retail property owners and landlord’s having sympathy for the retailers they may now begin to ask for 6 months rent in advance. This is double the amount normally expected. We are all aware that the commercial property market has been suffering as well (being in its worse state for 15 years) but when commercial property agents tell us at NovaLoca that “they haven’t possibly got time to answer every enquiry” for a retail property that their clients are paying them to find a tenant for it is implied that it is the property agents who should be tightening their budgets not the tenants!
Yes, commercial property landlords need to make a living too but if they make it too difficult for a retailer to pay the rent they run the risk of loosing the tenant entirely rather than the rent being paid a little late.
There are offers available to help you and your commercial property agent do everything possible to avoid your retail premises ending up on the commercial property shelf such as free property marketing offered by online commercial property search engine, NovaLoca. But make sure you follow up on the leads this marketing generates.
