The High Street Is Dead. Offices Are Finished. Really?

Episode 94 – The High Street Is Dead. Offices Are Finished. Really? "The high street is dead."

"Nobody wants offices anymore."

"Why would anyone invest in retail?"

Suzi heard comments very much like these while speaking about commercial property recently — and they got her thinking.

Because there are certainly high streets she wouldn't touch with a bargepole, and there are offices she wouldn't buy at almost any price.

But does that mean all high streets are dead? Or that all offices are finished?

Absolutely not.

In this episode of The Commercial Property Podcast, Suzi challenges some of the sweeping assumptions investors make about different commercial property sectors and explains why commercial property isn't one market.

A struggling secondary high street with lots of empty units is very different from an affluent market town with strong footfall, thriving independent businesses and hardly anything available to let.

And an enormous, outdated office building with little occupier demand is very different from a smaller office in a location where so much stock has been converted to residential that good-quality office space has actually become scarce.

The important question isn't whether retail, offices or any other commercial property sector is "good" or "bad". It's whether THIS property, in THIS location, at THIS price, with THIS occupational market, makes sense.

And that's where niching, local knowledge and proper research become so important.