are rents going up or down

duffysfarm

as the title says, are people seeing that rents for commercial properties are going up or down? i know a lot depends on location and condition. the main reason that i am asking is because i have a friend who got a rent reduction last year because they said they were doing badly and now the landlord wasnt to restore the rent to what it was so its not really an increase but the person seems to be very annoyed. i know from visiting the local hairdresser that they have increased their prices (sign in shop) and they are putting it down to rent increase and vat.
has anyone else any other experiences?

jimmii

In the UK but in our area commercial rents are flying up. Few of our neighbor's have had to move because of it. Theres still no shortage of takers though so seems fair enough.

neris

Going up at anything Ive looked at over the last few years. In our business we are finding it impossible in Dublin to find suitable premises and any thing that can be modified to our needs is 20-40% higher then it was a few years back. The other problem with rent increases can be the costs of rates then increase aswell.

jimmii

Yeah it's a double whammy! I'm up in Scotland and its depressing seeing the huge rate relief down in England with no sign of it coming in here. Must be killer for the border towns.