Slight improvement in Offaly commercial vacancy levels

There has been an improvement in the level of commercial vacancies both in Offaly and in Edenderry, a town which historically had recorded some of the country's highest rates of vacancies.

The latest GeoDirectory Commercial Buildings Report, showed that the commercial vacancy rate in Offaly decreased to 15.9% in December 2023, from 16.1% the same time the previous year.

The report, prepared by EY, found that this was higher than the national average of 14.3%.

Of the towns in Offaly analysed, Edenderry had the highest commercial vacancy rate at 24.5% while Birr had the lowest at 16.6%. Tullamore recorded a rate of 18.8%.

Vacancy rates in Edenderry had fallen from 25.1% the previous year, but remained the tenth highest across 80 towns nationally surveyed, although that represented an improvement on the seventh position last year.

Edgeworthstown, Co. Longford was the town with the highest commercial vacancy rate in the country in Q4 2023, at 30.2%. Shannon, Co. Clare (29.8%), Ballybofey Co. Donegal (29.4%), Boyle, Co. Roscommon (27.6%), and Sligo town (26.2%) completed the top five towns by highest commercial vacancy rate.

Greystones, Wicklow and Carrigaline, Cork, were the towns with the lowest commercial vacancy rate in the country, at 5.6% and 7.2% respectively.

At a national level, the average commercial vacancy rate increased by 0.3 percentage points (ppt) to 14.3% in the year to Q4 2023. This is the highest level of commercial vacancy recorded by GeoDirectory since it began tracking data in 2013. In total, there were 30,046 empty commercial units across the country, with the commercial vacancy rate increasing in 20 out of 26 counties.

Sligo, at 20.5%, was the county with the highest commercial vacancy rate, followed by Galway (18.5%) and Donegal (18.2%). The west of the country continued to record high commercial vacancy rates in Q4 2023, with the rate in Connacht reaching 18.3%, an increase of 0.7 ppts compared to the same period in 2022.

Meath (10.1%) remained as the county with the lowest commercial vacancy rate in the state, closely followed by Wexford (10.5%) and Cork (12.2%).

In Dublin, the commercial vacancy rate increased by 0.3 ppts from Q4 2022 to 13.2%, which was the highest level recorded in Dublin since Q4 2016.