Residential Investment Property

Demand for Commercial Property Falling Fastest in Retail Industry

Demand for commercial property is falling at the fastest pace in a decade, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)as across the UK, 52% more chartered surveyors reported a fall than a rise in demand compared to 50% in Quarter 2 2008..

Retail property was the worst hit sector with 59% more chartered surveyors reporting a fall than a rise in demand for the third quarter of this year. Chartered surveyors said the demand for industrial and office properties was at the lowest levels since the RICS commercial property survey began in 1998.  

'The ongoing drag from the credit crunch is permeating through rental sentiment across all regions and sectors, especially in the central London office market where recent worry over the health of the hedge fund industry is only adding to the sense of pessimism,' said Oliver Gilmartin, RICS senior economist. 

Gilmartin noted the opening of Europe's largest shopping centre, Shepherd's Bush-based Westfield, came when most retailers are bracing themselves for a 'torrid' Christmas period.

Empty floor space was also growing at the fastest pace in the survey's brief history with 33% more surveyors reporting a rise in available floor space, up from 27% in the second quarter. Rics said landlords were retaliating with sweeteners to convince tenants to sign on the dotted paper.

'The intensification in credit strains following the collapse of Lehman brothers will undoubtedly further dampen investment and occupier demand heading into the fourth quarter,' said Gilmartin.

About UK Business Property

Whilst there are more than 20 portals covering residential property in the UK the commercial property market remains relatively unserved, with no site having a majority share of the total available commercial property listed. The internet has taken a significantly greater share of all advertising spend each year as it continues to prove that it is the most effective medium for advertisers to reach their audience.

Traditional estate agency methods remain quite successful in reaching the local market around a property, but do not capture leads from the national and international markets at all well. With increasing mobility of populations and business in the global village, it makes sense to expose commercial properties as efficiently as possible to the whole market. In 2006 there were 6 million searches (based on figures from Yahoo Search) made on the internet in the UK for commercial property of all types. Many of these searches will be fruitless as major search engines do not expose many of the available properties at present.

UK Business Property aims to change this by offering commercial agents important incentives to bring all their properties to the whole market. By linking to UKBP agents will bring more traffic to their websites. For agents who do not yet have a fully featured search on their website UKBP offers it's advanced search functions free of charge, in an easy to implement solution. The advantage is that you keep your visitors on your site and build your brand in your local market, while receiving leads from a national and international audience.