Dekalb County retail vacancies have been increasing for most of the past 20 years. The only exception is between 2011-2017 where we see a decrease of about 8%. Because the vacancies have been steadily increasing since the trough in 2017, we cannot say for certain that COVID-19 has resulted in the 2020 increase. The increases since the beginning of this year have been slow, resulting in less steep increases than 2019. It will be interesting to see how the pandemic affects the retail vacancies in Dekalb County in the coming months and throughout 2021.

The Dekalb County retail sublet vacancy rate has been very erratic since 2000. There are more increases and decreases than the other counties, and the jumps in vacancy rates in Dekalb County are drastic. However, the sublet vacancy rates have decreased since the beginning of 2020. Keep watching this metric in Dekalb County to see if vacancies will continue to decrease in retail space after the pandemic is over or if COVID-19 will catch up to Dekalb County and result in increased vacancies in retail sublets.

All data from CoStar Group