Which words do you most often see or hear first if someone is just about to write or say #highstreet landlord.
Greedy. Absentee. Not interested…?
How about we replace those with…
Struggling. Anxious. Trying (the making a big effort sort, not the frustrating).
⚖️ Understanding the perspectives of each of its stakeholders is a crucial role of the tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ that’s always at the heart of our ‘next steps’ approach for #TheVacantShopsAcademy locations…
…and explaining the long list of reasons why a landlord might not be keen on a particular letting (or indeed any one) is a big part of that.
Here’s just some of them:
+ It may not work with their loans / leverage agreements;
+ They may have other aspirations for the #property;
+ It may be a long term investment;
+ The cost to let may be prohibitive;
+ Their income target may be being met by other e.g. upstairs tenants in the building;
+ A deal here may negatively impact agreements with other tenants in the same town / city;
+ The building is listed so they pay no business rates when it’s empty thus reducing their incentive to let;
+ They may have had bad experiences with tenants previously…;
+ …or a tenant that’s left but is still paying rent on an unexpired lease.
And there are other factors we could add, each equally sensible if you look at them from the landlord’s perspective.
So that’s another part of the rationale for a positive, proactive ‘place partnership’. Where one or more of the above is a barrier to getting the empty unit back in play another stakeholder (or two) can step up and help find a way.
You could try the “surely it’s better to…” argument or wield some kind of regulatory stick, but as places that have tried that find, it’s no guarantee to get the job done.
It’s why we encourage the town and city centre teams we’re supporting on tackling vacancy to go for the working together approach: visit the units, see what the barriers to let are, understand the landlord’s circumstances and perspective, and explore what you can do to help. You may still fail, but our experience is that you’ve a greater chance of success.
Or am I wrong…?
