Can Manchester and Birmingham Escape June Quarter Day Rental Meltdown?
The June quarter day is coming amidst predictions of low rent collection in the UK commercial property market. Landsec is reported to be preparing for 75% of retail rent to go unpaid. Yet could Manchester and Birmingham escape the worst?
An analysis based on 10,000 UK commercial properties and 35,000 separate leases suggests that Manchester saw 21% of rent go missing in March, a poor performance compared with Cambridge (7%) and Bristol (9%) but appreciably better than London (40%). The UK average was 30%. Birmingham’s performance was roughly comparable to Manchester’s at 18%.
Commercial property management platform Re-Leased, which published the data, assessed the proportion of rent collected in the 25 days after the March quarter day, and compared it with performance in 2019 and 2018.
Re-Lease argued the figures show that Manchester is relatively resilient.
“Behind the overall UK picture, there are significant variations in rent collection across key regions and cities,” Re-Leased chief executive Tom Wallace said.
