RETAIL
Clur Index Q3 2024
The Clur Shopping Centre Index, part of the broader Clur Collective asset management platform, provides key insights into asset health and retail performance, covering more than 4.1 million square meters of prime retail space across South Africa and Namibia. This coverage is set to increase to over 5.4 million square meters soon.
• Gap Between Rental Growth and CPI Narrowing: The gap between South African shopping centre base rental growth and CPI is closing, with rental growth reaching 3.7 % in Q3 2024.
• Shift in Centre Dynamics: Smaller regional centres outperformed larger super regional centres in rental growth and trading density in Q3 2024, reversing previous trends.
• Western Cape Leads Performance: Western Cape showed the highest trading density and rental growth in Q3 2024, outperforming Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
Rental Growth Closes Gap with CPI
As of September 2024, base rental growth across South African shopping centres has closed the gap with the Consumer Price Index( CPI), reaching 3.7 %, just 0.1 % below CPI at 3.8 %. Belinda Clur, managing director of Clur International, comments:“ Rental growth rates have been trailing CPI since July 2020, particularly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, Q3 2024 has shown a shift, with rental growth outperforming trading density growth across the board.”
The shift reflects a retreat in domestic inflation and a solidifying rental growth rate consistently above 3 % throughout 2024. Trading density, however, contracted further by 0.5 % compared to Q2 2024, and by-1.7 % year-on-year relative to Q4 2023.
Sector-Specific Performance: Super Regionals vs Small Centres
A key trend in Q3 2024 is the reversal in the performance dynamic between larger and smaller centres. Historically, larger centres such as super regionals outperformed smaller centres, but this has shifted. Smaller regional centres now lead in trading density growth.
32 REI MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2024 / JANUARY 2025