More than half of visibly vacant highstreet units have no agent involved in trying to get them back into use.
It’s a stat that raises eyebrows every time we mention it and is one we table as a challenge for the local tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ teams we’re working with.
It comes from a tally we’re keeping of the agent / no agent status of all the vacant units we see in commission locations. That’s now past the 1,000 empty units in total milestone.
And remember the circa 50% figure is an average across 46 places which means some will have even higher rates. In the most recent town we ran our ‘audit’, two thirds of the empty units looked to have no agent instructed. Two in every three.
That likely means no professional specialists working away to find new occupiers, no details online or on lettings boards at the unit to guide would-be occupiers to the information they need, and so surely a reduced chance of being let.
It’d be really interesting to know what the ‘agent / no agent’ percentage is in your place…?
