Anyone who talks about green shoots risks ridicule. But a report published by Cushman & Wakefield and comments from the agency’s head of global retail are among the first encouraging signs that the rate of decline in the retail property market might be gradually easing off.

And this on a day when the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, one of the property industry’s most accurate barometers, says that the housing market is at last showing hints of a slowdown in declining values after 18 months of hurt.

Nobody is saying that things aren’t extremely tough and won’t remain that way for some time yet, but predictions of this sort go some way to bringing back confidence if nothing else.

What is heartening is that while void rates are undoubtedly high - some 15 per cent in the worst hit areas – it seems that the quantity of empty stores coming onto the market, almost entirely caused by administrations, might have reached the high water mark.

With so few shopping centres opening in 2009 compared with last year, retailers who do want to expand have no choice but to fill voids, and for certain retailers like the value players, retail failures such as Woolworths’ last year are the opportunity they have been waiting for.

The number of administrations has also ease. So maybe if retailers see that the amount of space - and therefore the amazing deals available - might have peaked. That in itself may prompt some into acqusitions while the opportunities are there.

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