More retail spaces converted into homes bringing retail vacancy to 10-year low

At the end of last year, 6 percent of retail properties in the Netherlands were vacant, bringing vacancy back to the 2011 level, according to figures from market researcher Locatus. The falling vacancy is mainly due to many retail properties getting a different function last year. Many were converted into homes, for example, NOS reports.

A total of 12,700 retail properties were vacant at the end of 2022. That is 1,700 less than at the start of last year. Another reason for the decrease is that so many shops have disappeared in recent yeast that the bottom seems to have been reached.

Locatus pointed out that it is not only doom and gloom for physical retail stores. After years of decline, the market researcher sees a revival in jewelers, cookery shops, and businesses for stamps and coins.’

“It also applies to the toy industry,” Locatus director Gertjan Slob said, according to NOS. “In 2004, our country still had over 1,100 toy shops, of which there were still over 600 left. Now we can see from the figures that the number of toy shops is rising slightly again. At some point, a kind of equilibrium will emerge between the internet and the ‘old fashioned’ physical and physical shops will do better.”