Climb in vacancies forces negative rental escalation: The numbers are exploding and not all in the right direction! TPN predicts negative escalation as a climb in vacancies forces landlords to negotiate decreased rentals. Income, or rather the lack thereof, has been a major contributor to tenants’ early cancellation of lease agreements, the drying up of demand in 2020 and pushing up of vacancies. Overall, landlords are left with a 12.91% vacancy rate to compete against. The encouraging news is that vacancy rates have started to recover in three of the four main provinces: Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal but Gauteng continues to deteriorate with 14.66% vacancies in Q4 of 2020, pulling the national average up.
