Commercial Rental Monitor
Category General
By guest contributor: John Loos, Property Sector Strategist - FNB Commercial Property Finance
In the 3rd quarter of 2020, commercial tenant rental payment performance began its long slow road to recovery following the sharp COVID-19-related lockdown drop in the 2nd quarter.
From a lowly 50.36% of Commercial tenants being in good standing with landlords in the 2nd quarter of 2020, the level ticked up mildly to 56.19% in the 3rd quarter. Although, this remains well below the pre-lockdown level of 77.85% recorded in the 1st quarter of this year.
Preliminary monthly tenant payment performance data up to October showed a continued recovery in the poorly performing Retail Property Sector's tenant population. However, the better performing Office and Industrial Property Sectors' tenant payment performances lacked further improvement progress from September onward, the Industrial tenant population even weakening slightly.
The Retail Property Sector's tenant population has been impacted the most severely of the major 3 property sectors through the COVID-19 lockdown period, while the smaller Storage Sector appears to have sailed through the lockdown in significantly better shape than all of the major 3 property sectors.
While all 3 major provinces' tenant payment performances improved mildly in the 3rd quarter, and all had taken severe knocks in the 2nd quarter, the Western Cape maintained its superior tenant performance relative to Gauteng and KZN, Gauteng continuing to show the weakest performance of the 3 regions.
Please click here to read the full Commercial Rental Monitor for Q3 2020
Author: Tenant Profile Network (TPN)
