There is no doubt that 2021 will continue to be a challenging year for retailers and retail landlords across all locations. Q1 2021 will probably see more retailer failures and questions over rent collection, though we expect these to have less of an impact on retail warehouse parks than high streets or shopping centres.

The next key date in retail warehouse retailers calendars will be Easter 2021, and given the recent positive news on vaccines, it is reasonable to assume that the lockdown situations will generally be looser by then. This will translate in a more normal trading period, and possibly even a relief bounce in spending. This should boost rent collection and retailer performance across the sector.

This should mean that by summer 2021 the falls in rents that we have been seeing for a number of years in the retail warehouse market should continue to diminish, and we may also see some upward pressure on rents in locations where rebasing has taken place. We expect to see more investment activity across the retail warehouse market, with rising focus on parks that dominate their catchments and have a bulky goods bias and a food offer, or a foodstore adjacent to the park.

While the pick-up in investor demand will be welcome, we do not expect it to have much impact on the yield or pricing trajectory in 2021. The volume of retail warehouse assets that are actually or potentially on sale remains high, and this will enable buyers in the sector to be very selective on what assets they do and do not want. This will mean that prime yields should plateau in 2021, the wider trajectory for retail warehousing yields next year will be one of continued softening (albeit at a slower rate than in recent years).

_{Read the articles within Spotlight: UK Retail Warehousing below.}