Why Net Lease is the Darling of the Retail Sector

CHICAGO—Retail may be getting a bad rap nationally, but one observer thinks you shouldn’t paint the entire sector with a broad brush.

“When most people think negatively about retail, they’re talking about big box, C class malls and major enclosed malls, all of which are having their challenges,” says Randy Blankstein, president of The Boulder Group. “The overall perception of retail is, at best, uncertain and, at worst, shrinking.”

But in the single-tenant national net lease segment, Blankstein says things are different. “If you drill down on it, net lease is the darling of the retail sector,” he says. “Net lease is more necessity based.”

Blankstein says service business, such as gas stations, fitness centers and even drug stores remain net lease stalwarts. “There are a lot of necessity-based things in drugstores—food products and day of products for whatever ailment you may have. So, there’s an immediacy about it. That leaves it [net lease] as by far the best sector within retail. I think it will fare much better than retail as a whole over the coming year.”

There is another trend working in favor of retail in single tenant net lease, according to Blankstein. When retailers leave malls and still have a sustainable business model, they’re often moving to standalone locations.

“Net lease benefits because people are looking for free-standing buildings,” Blankstein says. “You’re seeing Panera, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and those kinds of brands leave strip centers they don’t like and find their own buildings. Apple has anchored a lot of these enclosed malls and they don’t want to be there anymore. There will be standalone Apple stores all over the place.”

Outside of single-tenant national net lease retail, Blankstein also likes industrial in the year ahead. And, despite his doubts about e-commerce for necessity-based retail, online shopping is a big reason why.

“Industrial is greatly benefiting from the e-commerce expansion and that’s not about to change soon,” Blankstein says. “I think everyone is so focused on how to shorten the timeframe from the moment you press buy to when the goods get to you, which is going to make for smaller facilities and a variety of greater facilities around all the major markets.”

While Amazon is still, obviously, the leader in e-commerce, Blankstein thinks other retailers will push further into the sector. “As people continue to race to catch up to Amazon, industrial will still be a great sector.”

For Blankstein, office net lease is a little bit more mixed. “I think it’s more localized on a metro-by-metro basis,” he says. “But even though office and industrial make up a large dollar share of the net lease market, they don’t make up a large set of properties in the net lease market.”