Landlords ARE being fair with shop rents, say estate agents
Monday 17th August 2009, 2:29PM BST.
COMMERCIAL estate agents have dismissed concerns about the number of empty properties in Town.
It has been claimed that soaring rents have forced a number of Town shops to close but two industry insiders said that, in their experience, landlords were still being fair to retailers.
Nick Brett, who runs Nick Brett Property Ltd, said there have always been vacant properties in St Peter Port.
He said it made no sense for landlords to increase rents beyond what tenants could afford.
‘An empty property is no good to a landlord, unless they want it empty,’ he said.
A recent survey by Deputy Mary Lowe highlighted 48 empty properties in Town – a figure that is set to rise as some businesses struggle to cope during the current economic downturn.
‘There have always been empty shops,’ Mr Brett said. ‘I have been doing this job for donkey’s years and I have never known Town to be full.
‘It’s easy to say the rents are too high. We could have a property for £20,000-a-year that did not let, we could reduce it to £10,000 and it would still not let because there is something not right about the property. I don’t believe they [landlords] are asking for unrealistic rents. There may be some that do, but I don’t think they do in general.’
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Wow !
An estate agent that says that property isn’t overpriced by landlords !
Obviously a slow news day on the island.
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Every body can make mistakes; and I am no exception to the rule than others.
here was me thinking the venerable gentleman was a property dealer whereas it turns out he’s a comedian,
I too have seen st peter port Shopping centre over many years; and I never once saw an empty shop.
But there again we talk of when Guernsey was Guernsey not a would be satellite.
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of course an estate agent is going to say rents are fair, the higher the rent they can get the bigger the profit for them. get real!
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The rents are cheaper in Guernsey than in Suffolk; a local franchise for a substandard sarnie shop is leasehold at £64k with an additiona £24k per annum rent.
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I accept his point that it would be foolish of landlords to charge such high rentals that they don’t get tenants – it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen though.
The evidence speaks for itself – nearly 50 empty shops. Yes, rental costs can’t be blamed for all of that however with retail being so highly competitive these days, in order to be even vaguely competitive with Internet shopping Guernsey businesses will need significantly lower overheads.
Personally I would much rather hear from an independent expert rather than someone with an obvious vested interest. Let’s face it, estate agents are hardly going to call their management clients a bunch of greedy ***** are they?
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Why hasn’t the Guernsey Press done a comparison with the number of vacant shop premises on Jersey or the Isle of Man ?
It would be interesting to know if we are actually doing any better or worse than them.
Are their traditional town centres booming or is there a shift away to modern developments ?
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I think a failure by many local retailers to recognise the competition that the internet brings is a major contributing factor. Prices here do not reflect that. Retailers re-charge VAT as “freight costs” which remarkably equates to the VAT rate in the UK, which is remarkable because whenever I order anything costing say £100 or more on the internet, delivery tends to be free !
There are some products where its better to buy locally and know that somebody can service the product, but for things like clothes, luggage, most electrical goods, books etc its far cheaper to buy on line and it arrives within 48 hours.
Its extremely hard for any retailer to compete with that, no matter how good they are.
My experience of visiting various UK cities in recent months suggests that empty shops on the high street are not unique to Guernsey.
Last Christmas, 2 or 3 days before Christmas Day, I was on Oxford Street in London, where there was 70% off in virtually all shops. Has anybody ever seen that before ? These are very tough times for all retailers so its hardly surprising that we have empty shops at the moment.
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nearly 50 empty shops in a small town like Guernsey’s? Get real! I have just been over to Guernsey on holiday – nothing worse than seeing empty shops around the main parts of Town. Yes, there has always been empties in Town – that’s because the rents are too high! Doh! Don’t bother asking for a balanced view from an estate agent. Try asking a recently evicted tenant for their opinion to make the argument more balanced, or even a few current local home grown retailers (not the UK based loaded retailers who are willing to pay the moeny for the outlet in the first place) These are the retailers we should be nurturing – keep in local Guernsey. Trust me – you have a gem of a little town. Don’t ruin it with those ghastly high turn-over shops. Get a strategy for the Town sorted and BRING DOWN THE RENTS.
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The other day I went into town to buy something but to my disbelief the shopkeeper had withdrawn labour due to not being able to meet the demands of their landlord. The goods I wanted would have helped me secure a dream job worth miwwions of pounds.
I would like to sue someone.
We must stand together and tell these shopkeepers to just get on and sell things we need. They should be thankful they’ve got a job. A few tens of thousands of debt is the price you’ll have to pay to keep all us fancy dan Guernians in yachts and SPVs and stuff.
Idlers.
Who will support these brave landlords? These poor souls have lost equity on their portfolios. CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT!?!
Won’t someone please think of the children.
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It is a sad thing to see so many empty shops, but there a few new ones springing up here and there, or is it that I don’t go to town much.
Rents are perhaps only part of the problem, wages paid to staff must be a large part of the equation, in order to retain staff I’m sure some shopkeepers pay more than they’d like to.
The other notable aspect is the number of shops that stop trading using competition from the internet as a reason, the answer is not to close but to modernise and diversify the product range, get staff to be more knoweledgable on the products they sell and offer something everyone seems to have forgotten about – CUSTOMER SERVICE,
why is it for instance that a town shop may quote 3-4 weeks to get something from the uk when the same item can usually be sourced through the internet and arrive within a week at most.
A lot of town traders are just too slow to understand and react to the changing requirements of the shopping public.
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None of you are being fair with the estate agents information.
Of course the owners are being fair with the rents.
Just as fair as the moon being made of cheese.
“Guernsey cheese remember”
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It’s not only happening in Town
There are two adjoining premises just inland from Cobo Coast (ex butcher and hairdresser )Both have been empty for many months
Another is an ex grocery shop near the Vale Church
There must be many others around the country areas
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I love to slag off estate agents as much as the next man, possibly more, but consider this….
What’s easiest and most profitable… a) running a shop in town, paying high rents and getting robbed/abused by fuggo chavs every day, or b) sitting behind a nice shiny desk, in an air-conditioned bank/trust company, contributing to online local news forums all day???
Are rents really to blame, or is this simply the first tangible manifestation of the ridiculous two tier, finance vs the rest, economy that we’ve created? How long until Guernsey becomes 65,000 accountants sat in their BMW’s trying to find a M&S that’s still open???
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take care you could end up like jersey, student bob is correct.
your young will not have a affordable home as here in jersey £450,000 for a first time buyers rabbit hutch, is sickening to say the least.
estate agents will talk the price up anyway.
why they are needed, lord knows, mainly for the buy to let absentee landlord. methinks.
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I dont know who is to blame here, but for too long us girls and probably boys have had no choice when it comes to shopping, so what do we do,order online, shop elsewhere, buy from catalogues because we then have choice. If we only shopped in Guernsey we would all be dressed the same by either M&S or Creaseys for a long time nearly every female clothing outlet was run by Creaseys, I am not complaining about the shop but we want more CHOICE and variety and as for childrens clothing and maternity wear well dont get me started on that.
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An agent will only get paid if they let the premises, that’s how they earn their fee, that’s their business income. There are always those that over value & willing to take instuctions over the top but surely in these tough economic times their own business survival depends on being realistic, i should know, i have been an agent for 20 years. More to it though than just the rents, raising capital to set up shop in the first place………..?
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St Peter Port, once a ‘quaint’ local shopping centre, with the romance of cobbled streets and locals businesses that appealed to locals and tourists alike, has become a ghost town.
The reason? High rents charged by deluded, greedy landlords and their representatives who have been milking local businesses dry for years and years in the belief that they could go on like that forever, effectively rendering these retailers unable unable to compete with cheaper, online prices.
So now the money cow’s milked dry, and it’s the Landlords who are paying the price….
hung by their own petard, how poetic.
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@valeite: In all fairness to Creasey’s, their shop contains franchises of a number of larger UK shops most of which would never set up their own store here due to lack of critical mass. So I think Creasey’s perhaps offer more than they are being given credit for in your post.
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