The crisis that accompanies the retail sector in 2020 and which worsened with the arrival of COVID-19 in the country, will continue to be present. Experts predict a tight and complicated market in 2021. Bertha Mora, Costa Rican market expert explained that this situation will change as the same businesses are reintegrated into the economy.
“The retail market will continue to be very contracted and complicated and it will recover according to how the same businesses are reintegrated into the economy. The spaces that have been released as a result of the Pandemic open an opportunity to possible new locations for new businesses in the medium term. Even so, the two sectors that possibly cost the most to recover are Alajuela and Heredia due to the amount of m2 in retail that entered there in recent years ”, she commented.
Office and Industrial markets
This picture is not similar for the office and industrial markets. In the case of the office space market, in the short term there is still a certain uncertainty due to the telework policies of the different local and multinational companies, since the formal implementation of a telework policy encompasses a number of variables that companies must define before formally implementing this policy. This will dictate how many unoccupied m2 will be the result of this implementation.
Industry relatively unaffected
Quarterly measurements in Costa Rica have determined that throughout the time that the Pandemic has lasted, the industrial sector is the least affected in terms of the dynamics of its occupations, not by its supply chains. The tenants in this sector who are affected do not close their facilities, they contract and look for smaller spaces to avoid ceasing operations.
“It is true that it can be assumed that the market grows in a less accelerated way due to a theme of aversion to risk and caution from investors. Those tenants who, if their operation has been affected, have decided not to cease their operations and move to much smaller spaces, Mora said.
Finally, Mora stressed that one of the advantages of investing in a physical asset of this type is that, it is less likely that the nominal value of the investment will be lost as long as there is no leverage factor that puts it at risk.
