Claremont’s Bay View Terrace recorded a reduction in retail vacancies over the past 12 months, while vacancies along Oxford Street in Leederville climbed.
Claremont’s Bay View Terrace recorded a reduction in retail vacancies over the past 12 months, while vacancies along Oxford Street in Leederville climbed.
Ray White Commercial’s annual Between the Lines report analyses vacancies across Perth’s most popular retail strips.
Now in its fourth year the report collated data in November and found results varied across suburbs, with the Bay View Terrace precinct in Claremont recording a decrease in its vacancy rate.
“Seemingly undeterred by COVID-19, compared to last year’s result the strip has taken up two vacant shops, now leaving three unoccupied that represents a vacancy of just 4.46 per cent,” Ray White commercial WA senior property advisor Brett Wilkins said.
“This strip, which is known for its fashion, has been able to keep shops open with many local retailers still able to operate during lockdowns and reporting good results online this year.”
Out of all the surveyed areas Napoleon Street in Cottesloe recorded the lowest vacancy.
“With just 2.41 per cent vacancy, this is represented by just one shop, after a 100 per cent occupation period in our last survey,” he said.
“While this is a fantastic result, it bucks the trend in many ways regarding the way in which consumers are interacting with retail stores.”
Rokeby Road in Subiaco recorded minimal change in vacancies and Mr Wilkins said with a strong current and future population base, underpinned by upcoming property developments, the strip was expected to continue to perform better.
“Anticipated new developments including the under-construction residential development ‘ONE Subiaco’ by Blackburne, as well as the future development of Subiaco East around the football oval and PMH may cause some short-term disruption to the strip, however will reinject vibrancy to this location,” he said.
“Encouragingly though, vacancies have had minimal change due to COVID-19, recording vacancy of 14.99 per cent this period - up just 25 basis points on last year’s results.”
Oxford Street in Leederville and Beaufort Street in Mount Lawley recorded the highest vacancies.
“Our survey of Oxford Street in Leederville has yielded the most stand-out results this year. A market that boasted a zero-vacancy rate back in 2017 has grown year-on-year and has fallen victim to the lockdowns of COVID-19 this year,” he said.
“Vacancy has peaked at 14.63 per cent, which is a high level for this small retail strip of just 47 shop fronts, 10 of which are now unoccupied.”
Historically, Beaufort Street performed the worst out of all the strips recording the highest vacancies of all areas in Ray White’s annual Between the Lines reports.
“This year is no different with vacancy recorded at 15.41 per cent. However, this is down on last year’s peak result of 16.79 per cent,” he said.
“There continues to be churn in this market with continued movement out of clothing and soft goods, and growth in the services sector.”
“This is a more traditional trend we’ve been seeing in retailing across the country - albeit in contrast to some Perth retail strips we have monitored.”
