Empty Desks, Full Asking Prices: The Truth Behind Brighton's Vacant Commercial Property Problem

Walk through the North Laine on a Tuesday morning, past the independent cafés and the vintage record shops, and you might not immediately notice it. But look up. Look at the first and second floors. Look at the units just off the main drag — the ones with laminated A4 sheets taped to the inside of the glass. A lot of Brighton's commercial space is sitting empty. Not just quiet. Empty.

This isn't a new story, exactly. The remote work boom rattled commercial property markets across the UK, and Brighton — with its high proportion of creative, tech, and media workers — felt it particularly sharply. But what is surprising, four-plus years on from the pandemic, is how little has actually shifted. Vacancy rates in certain parts of the city remain stubbornly high. Landlords are holding firm on rents that many in the market describe, diplomatically, as "aspirational." And businesses that do want physical space are finding themselves in a strange negotiation — caught between a glut of available square footage and asking prices that don't seem to reflect it.

So what's actually going on?

The Gap Between Listed and Let

Speak to any commercial agent working Brighton and they'll tell you the same thing, usually with a slightly weary expression: the mismatch between what landlords are asking and what tenants are willing — or able — to pay has widened considerably since 2020. One agent, who works across the city centre and the Kemptown corridor, put it bluntly: "We're showing spaces that have been on the market for 18 months. The landlord won't budge. The tenant won't stretch. And the space just sits there."

Part of the issue is structural. Many commercial landlords in Brighton are private individuals or small portfolio holders rather than large institutional investors. That means they're not under the same pressure to offload vacant units quickly. They can absorb a period of emptiness — at least in the short term — rather than drop their asking price and set what they see as a damaging precedent.

But the market has moved. Businesses that might once have signed a five-year lease without blinking are now asking for break clauses at 12 months, flexible terms, and — increasingly — all-inclusive deals that bundle in rates, utilities, and even broadband. The traditional commercial lease model, with its upward-only rent reviews and tenant-heavy repairing obligations, is looking increasingly like a relic.

What Businesses Actually Want Now

The shift in what tenants are looking for isn't just about price. It's about risk. After the chaos of 2020 and 2021 — when businesses were locked out of spaces they were still legally obligated to pay for — there's an understandable reluctance to commit to anything long-term.

A Brighton-based marketing agency director, who recently relocated her team from a traditional office near the station to a smaller, more flexible arrangement in Hove, described the thought process: "We were paying for 1,800 square feet and using maybe 600 of it. Nobody was coming in every day. We needed something that actually matched how we work now — not how we worked in 2018."

That kind of rethink is happening across the city. Businesses are downsizing their footprint, not because they're struggling, but because they've genuinely recalibrated what a physical office is for. It's not a place where everyone sits and works. It's a place where people come together — for collaboration, for client meetings, for the things that genuinely benefit from being in the same room. The square footage required for that is considerably smaller than it used to be.

Which creates a problem for landlords sitting on large, open-plan floors that were designed for a different era of work.

The Landlord's Dilemma

It would be easy to cast landlords as the villains here — stubbornly clinging to pre-pandemic valuations while their properties gather dust. But the reality is more complicated.

For many, the asking price isn't just about profit. It's about mortgage covenants, about the valuations their lenders expect, about not wanting to crystallise a loss that they can, for now, avoid acknowledging. Dropping the rent on a commercial unit doesn't just affect that unit — it can affect how the entire building is valued. That's a meaningful consideration for anyone whose financial position depends on property assets.

There's also the question of what comes next. Some landlords are genuinely waiting to see whether the office market rebounds further before committing to lower rents or shorter leases. Others are exploring conversion — turning commercial floors into residential or mixed-use space — though that route comes with its own planning hurdles in Brighton, where the council has historically been cautious about losing commercial stock.

A handful are quietly experimenting with hybrid models: renting to a co-working operator on a management agreement rather than a traditional lease, sharing the upside if occupancy grows rather than taking a fixed monthly cheque. It's not a perfect solution, but it's an indication that some parts of the market are beginning to adapt.

What This Means for Brighton's High Street

The knock-on effects of all this empty commercial space aren't just financial. They're physical and psychological. Empty units change the feel of a street. They signal decline, even when the businesses nearby are doing perfectly well. In a city like Brighton, where the character of the high street is a genuine point of civic pride, that matters.

There's also a practical concern around business diversity. If the only tenants who can afford Brighton's commercial rents are national chains or well-funded operators, the independent businesses that give the city its identity get squeezed out — or pushed further from the centre, into areas with lower footfall and less visibility. That's a pattern that's already visible in parts of the city, and it's one worth paying attention to.

Some observers point to the vacant units as an opportunity — a chance to rethink what commercial space in Brighton is actually for. Could empty offices become affordable studios for artists and makers? Could they become short-term retail space for businesses that don't need a permanent presence but do need somewhere to operate? The infrastructure is already there. The will, and the right rental structures, are the missing pieces.

A Market in Transition

The honest answer to the question of why Brighton's commercial spaces are still half-empty is that the market is in the middle of a slow, uncomfortable adjustment. Landlords and tenants are both recalibrating — just not always at the same speed, or in the same direction.

For anyone looking for commercial space in Brighton right now, that transition creates genuine opportunity. There is more space available than the headlines might suggest, and landlords who have been sitting on empty units for months are, quietly, becoming more negotiable. The key is knowing where to look, what to ask for, and how to structure a deal that works for both sides.

The 'To Let' signs aren't going anywhere just yet. But the conversations happening behind them are starting to change.