The percentage of vacant commercial properties in Mayo rose by just under one per cent in the last quarter according to the lasted GeoView report published by GeoDirectory and DKM. The current rate of vacancy in commercial properties in the county is 13.2 per cent up from 12.5 per cent at the same time last year. Mayo also finds itself above the national average which is 12.7 per cent.
The report found that out of the 8,188 commercial address points in Mayo, 1,084 of them were vacant in the third quarter of year, between July and September. In the three big urban areas in the county, Westport comes out on top with just 11.1per cent of the commercial address’ vacant, while in Ballina the figure was 18.7 per cent and Castlebar came in just shy of 20 per cent with 19.8 per cent of commercial address’ vacant. Westport has seen a fall in the per centage of premises vacant from the same stage last year dropping from 11.3 per cent of 11.1 per cent with Castlebar seeing a rise of 0.5 per cent and Ballina 0.7 per cent.
According the report there are 6,937 commercial address points in the county, with 704 of them in Ballina, 842 in Castlebar and 530 in Westport. Broken down by category of business in the county, 46.3 per cent are service industry, 23.9 per cent are distribution based business, 8.2 per cent are health related, 7.4 per cent are construction related, 5.7 per cent are industrial businesses, 5.3 per cent are education based, 1.5 per cent are financial based business’ with 1.8 per cent in public ownership.
At county level, the highest commercial vacancy rate of 16.6 per cent was in Co. Sligo. Co. Kerry had the lowest commercial vacancy rate of 8.9 per cent.
Connacht had the highest vacancy rate among the provinces in both quarter three 2013 and quarter three 2014. The 2014 rate of 14.6 per cent was 0.9 per cent higher than the 13.7 per cent recorded a year earlier.
The GeoView Commercial Premises Vacancy Report is published on a quarterly basis by GeoDirectory and DKM Economic Consultants, tracking commercial vacancy rates nationally and by county.
