U.S. Retail Market Report 2026: Vacancy, Rents, Cap Rates and the Store Closure Ledger

The 2025 store closure wave vacated roughly 127 million square feet of American retail. National vacancy ended the year at 4.3 percent and sits at 4.3 percent today. This report reconciles those two facts, then works through leasing, rents, construction economics, the transaction market and a September Fed hike to explain what a lender or investor should expect from U.S. retail real estate through 2030.

September 22, 2026, by Michal Mohelsky, J.D.

One vacancy number, and the closures it absorbed

Most people who follow retail have two numbers in their head that do not agree with each other. The first is the closure count. Joann, Party City, Rite Aid, Big Lots and Forever 21 liquidated in 2025, and the trade press counted something on the order of 8,000 to 9,000 store closures for the year, with well over 100 million square feet of space handed back to landlords (1). The second is the vacancy rate. The MMCG national retail series, which covers 11.74 billion square feet of retail inventory across 171 U.S. markets, put national vacancy at 4.1 percent at the end of 2024, 4.3 percent at the end of 2025 and 4.3 percent as of the third quarter of 2026 (2). Twenty basis points of movement over the worst closure year since the pandemic.

The reconciliation is worth doing carefully because it is the spine of everything else in this report. Net absorption, which is move-ins minus move-outs, was negative 0.5 million square feet for calendar 2025 across the national series (2). If closures put something like 127 million square feet back on the market during the year, then tenants moved into roughly 126 million square feet over the same twelve months, before counting the ordinary churn that happens in a 11.7-billion-square-foot inventory in any year. In other words, the market re-leased space at almost exactly the pace it was being vacated. That was not luck. The tenants doing the backfilling (grocers, off-price chains, discount variety, fitness operators, quick-service restaurants, auto parts) had spent 2021 to 2023 unable to find boxes in the 15,000 to 40,000 square foot range because there were none available. The bankruptcies gave them the boxes.

The same pattern is running in 2026 with less noise. Coresight's cumulative tracker of announced store space counted 28.6 million square feet of net retail space closed through August announcements (3). The national series recorded 16.4 million square feet of positive net absorption year to date, including a 10.5 million square foot second quarter that was the strongest quarterly result since late 2023 (2). Space is being handed back. More space is being taken.

That single reconciliation carries three of this report's conclusions. Retail is short of leasable space, not short of tenants. The distress of 2024 and 2025 was a tenant credit event, not a real estate event, and the landlords who owned the right format converted it into the largest rent reset in a decade. And the reason vacancy will not go materially higher from here is that almost nobody can build.

A note on definitions before the numbers get more granular. Readers will see national retail vacancy quoted anywhere from 4.3 percent to 6.0 percent depending on the source. Cushman & Wakefield's shopping center series reported 6.0 percent for the second quarter of 2026, against a historical average of 7.4 percent, and that series covers community, neighborhood, power and strip centers only; it explicitly excludes malls, outlets and freestanding retail (4). The 4.3 percent figure used throughout this report covers all retail, including the 6.45 billion square feet of general retail (freestanding and single-tenant buildings) that runs at 2.7 percent vacancy and pulls the blended number down. The two figures measure different inventories. Neither is wrong, and they should never be presented side by side as if one corrected the other.

Leasing: what a 4.3 percent market looks like by format

The national number hides the most useful information, which is how differently the formats behave. The table below is the current-quarter position of the national series by property type.

Format	Inventory (000 SF)	Vacancy	Availability	Asking rent	12-mo net absorption (SF)	Under construction (000 SF)
Malls	818,446	8.2%	5.9%	$36.06	1,819,161	3,588
Power centers	770,880	4.7%	5.3%	$28.51	1,896,443	974
Neighborhood centers	2,889,815	6.4%	7.3%	$25.87	1,836,955	10,288
Strip centers	703,723	5.2%	6.1%	$24.37	(224,608)	3,834
General retail	6,453,552	2.7%	3.3%	$24.95	5,187,348	38,664
Other	100,561	4.8%	3.5%	$32.00	24,820	203
National	11,736,977	4.3%	4.8%	$26.21	10,540,119	57,551

Source: MMCG national retail series, third quarter 2026 (2). Net absorption shown is the current-quarter figure.

Three things stand out. General retail, which is more than half of all U.S. retail square footage, runs at 2.7 percent vacancy and took 5.2 million square feet of positive absorption in the current quarter alone. This is the freestanding and single-tenant stock: the drugstore pads, the QSR outparcels, the auto parts stores, the dollar stores, the bank branches. It is also where 67 percent of the national construction pipeline sits, because it is the only format where a developer can start with a signed lease in hand. Neighborhood centers, at 6.4 percent, carry the residue of the Joann and Party City liquidations, since a 22,500 square foot craft store anchoring a grocery-shadowed strip is the archetypal 2025 closure. Malls, at 8.2 percent, are their own economy, and the mall inventory has been shrinking since 2020: 828.8 million square feet then, 818.4 million now, as obsolete centers are demolished or converted (2).

The historical context matters more than the quarterly reading. In 2014 the national series carried 621.7 million square feet of vacant retail at a 5.5 percent rate. Today it carries 507.3 million square feet at 4.3 percent. Inventory grew by only 4.6 percent over those twelve years, from 11.22 billion to 11.74 billion square feet, while the U.S. population grew by roughly 7 percent and nominal retail sales grew by far more (2). Between 2014 and 2019 the market absorbed an average of 96 million square feet a year. Between 2023 and 2025 it absorbed an average of 20 million, and the forecast for 2027 to 2030 runs 24 to 29 million a year (2). The absorption did not slow because demand fell. It slowed because there was nothing left to absorb.

The leasing picture in the nine metros MMCG reviewed in depth for this report confirms the format story with local texture. In Nashville, where vacancy is 3.3 percent, a former 100,000 square foot JCPenney at CoolSprings Galleria went to Dick's House of Sport in the third quarter and a 30,000 square foot former Electronic Express box was backfilled by Crunch Fitness; available space in the Cool Springs submarket is leasing in about four months, and recent leases signed by Buffalo Wild Wings, O'Reilly, Dunkin, Crunch, First Horizon and AutoZone all carried terms of at least ten years (5). In Los Angeles, the opposite problem: availability for 5,000 to 25,000 square foot boxes has risen almost 100 basis points since January to a decade high as Joann, Party City, Rite Aid, CVS and Claire's closures landed in a metro that has lost population since 2020, with Dollar Tree, Trader Joe's, Vons and Planet Fitness doing the backfilling but not fast enough to offset the outflow (6). Dallas-Fort Worth is a third case: healthy demand, but a 7.2 million square foot pipeline that has expanded tenant options for the first time in years, so that 4 and 5 Star centers in Celina, Prosper and Anna lease up rapidly while 1 and 2 Star inventory sees rising vacancy (7).

The second-quarter shopping center REIT results are the cleanest proof that the leasing market is working for owners of the right product. Kimco signed 161 new leases at a 40.4 percent cash spread in the quarter, its nineteenth consecutive quarter of double-digit new-lease spreads, with pro-rata occupancy at 96.4 percent and small-shop occupancy at a record 92.9 percent (8). Phillips Edison posted a 33.7 percent comparable new-lease spread and record inline occupancy of 95.5 percent (9). Federal Realty's new comparable leases came in at plus 34 percent on a cash basis and its small-shop leased rate of 93.9 percent was the highest since 2007 (10). Brixmor ran its third consecutive year of 30 percent plus new-lease spreads with same-property NOI up 5.8 percent (11). Regency's blended cash spread was a more modest 10.4 percent, but the portfolio is 96.9 percent leased with anchors at 98.4 percent (12). Tanger re-tenanted at plus 28.4 percent (13). Realty Income recaptured 102.7 percent of expiring rent (14) and Agree Realty's occupancy hit a company record 99.8 percent (15).

The one nuance to carry forward from those results is the gap between leased and commenced. Regency reported a 240 basis point spread between the two, Kimco disclosed a $75 million signed-not-yet-open pipeline, and Simon expects the roughly $18 million of rent it lost on Saks Off 5th space to become about $44 million, primarily a 2027 event (16). A meaningful share of the rent that shows up in 2026 leasing spreads will not cash flow until next year.

Rents: the headline slowed to 1.6 percent, the leases did not

National asking rent growth on the MMCG series is 1.6 percent over the past twelve months, the weakest reading since 2010 and well below the 2.3 percent forecast average for the balance of the decade (2). Asking rents sit at $26.21 per square foot nationally, ranging from $24.37 in strip centers to $36.06 in malls. Taken alone, the 1.6 percent figure reads like a market losing pricing power.

It is not, and the REIT data explains why. Asking rent is the price of space that is available. When the available space is concentrated in the worst locations and the worst formats (older neighborhood centers in stagnant metros, mid-sized boxes in Los Angeles, B malls), the average asking rent on that space grows slowly regardless of what the rest of the market is doing. Meanwhile, the space that actually gets leased, which is disproportionately the good space, is re-leasing at spreads of 30 to 40 percent above expiring rent at the grocery-anchored REITs and at plus 17 percent initial base rent at Simon (16). Effective portfolio rent growth at the public shopping center owners is running several times the headline asking-rent figure. The disconnect between the two is the most important thing to understand about retail rents in 2026, and it cuts in the landlord's favor.

There is also a productivity argument underneath the leasing spreads. Simon reported retailer sales of $838 per square foot for the twelve months to June 30, 2026, up 13.9 percent from $736 a year earlier, with base minimum rent of $62.42 per square foot, up 6.3 percent (16). Tenant sales grew twice as fast as rent. Occupancy cost ratios at Class A centers are falling even as rents rise, which is the condition under which rent growth continues.

Geographically, the rent map is a Sun Belt and Midwest story. Of the 171 markets in the national series, 28 recorded negative twelve-month asking rent growth and the median market grew 0.9 percent (2). The leaders among major metros were Milwaukee at 5.7 percent, Cincinnati at 5.5 percent, Charlotte at 5.0 percent, Nashville at 4.8 percent, Columbus at 4.5 percent, Phoenix at 4.4 percent and Northern New Jersey at 4.2 percent. The laggards were Pittsburgh at negative 1.9 percent, Portland at negative 1.5 percent, San Diego at negative 1.2 percent, Los Angeles at negative 1.1 percent, Providence at negative 0.3 percent and New York and Philadelphia essentially flat at 0.1 percent (2). The Midwest reacceleration is real and underappreciated: Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Columbus, Minneapolis and Indianapolis all rank in the top third of the MMCG index discussed later in this report, because a decade of near-zero construction finally cleared their excess availability.

Nashville is the clearest example of how segmented rent has become inside a single metro. Green Hills-Belle Meade asks $56.98 per square foot with 6.7 percent twelve-month growth and 10.6 percent annualized growth in the current quarter; Cheatham County, thirty miles west, asks $17.24. In Franklin's new Publix-anchored Village Green, an end-cap leased at nearly $55 per square foot NNN (5). The metro-level $31.36 average describes neither.

Construction: 57 million square feet underway, and why it is not more

The national series shows 57.5 million square feet of retail under construction, 0.5 percent of inventory, with 45.3 million square feet delivered over the past twelve months against a historical average of 83.6 million and a 2008 peak of 230 million (2). Net of demolitions and conversions, which are running on the order of 15 million square feet a year, inventory grew roughly 30 million square feet, or 0.26 percent. Under ordinary conditions a 4.3 percent vacancy rate would have triggered a development cycle several times that size.

MMCG computed the concentration of the pipeline from the market-level data, and it is extreme. Four metros (Dallas-Fort Worth with 7.18 million square feet, Houston with 5.13 million, Austin with 2.86 million and Phoenix with 2.40 million) account for 30.5 percent of everything under construction in the country. The top ten markets account for 46 percent. Forty-one of the 171 markets have nothing under construction at all, and 57 markets, holding 27 percent of national inventory, recorded negative absorption over the past twelve months (2). The pipeline is 78 percent pre-leased in aggregate. Retail development in 2026 is a build-to-suit and grocery-anchor business in a handful of growth metros, and almost nothing else.

Even inside the growth metros the pipeline is thinner than the headline suggests. Dallas-Fort Worth's 7.2 million square feet is 73.7 percent pre-leased and anchored by grocery expansion and build-to-suit programs; speculative construction remains limited by pre-leasing requirements (7). Houston's 5.1 million is 74 percent pre-leased, concentrated in Montgomery County, Bridgeland, Far Katy and Far South, and demolitions briefly exceeded new construction in the second quarter (17). Austin, which has delivered the most retail space as a share of inventory in the country for four consecutive years, has 2.9 million underway at 70 percent pre-leased and a slowdown in starts that market participants attribute to projects that simply do not pencil (18). Phoenix's 2.4 million square feet is less than a third available for lease (19). Nashville has 854,000 square feet underway, well below its post-pandemic average, and the Mount Juliet-Lebanon submarket has roughly 30,000 square feet under construction despite four years of availability below 2 percent (5). In San Francisco the pipeline is 104,000 square feet, in New York 0.3 percent of inventory, in Los Angeles 0.2 percent (20, 21) (6).

Why the response is so muted is a cost question, and the inputs moved against developers again in 2026. The Turner Building Cost Index reached 1552 in the second quarter, up 5.15 percent year over year (22). Rider Levett Bucknall's national index rose 4.41 percent in the first quarter, with Phoenix running hottest at 5.1 to 5.3 percent, Charlotte at 4.7 percent, Los Angeles at 4.0 percent and Dallas at 3.5 to 3.9 percent (23). Producer prices for steel mill products were up 17 percent year over year by mid-2026, aluminum mill shapes up 52 percent and copper and brass mill shapes up 26 percent, with 50 percent tariffs in effect on steel and aluminum (24). Cushman & Wakefield's third annual fit-out guide put the national average cost to fit out in-line retail at $157 per square foot, ranging from $120 in the Midwest and $126 in the Southeast to $217 in Northern California (25). Ground-up single-tenant pads run $275 to $425 per square foot including sitework and entitlements, and a basic finished retail shell runs $250 to $380 (26).

Construction debt is the second constraint. Bank construction loans for retail are pricing at SOFR plus 275 to 400 basis points, roughly 7.0 to 8.75 percent all in, at 55 to 65 percent loan to cost with pre-leasing conditions; debt funds price at SOFR plus 400 to 550 (27). Prime moved to 7.00 percent on September 17 after the Fed's hike, which sets the ceiling for SBA 7(a) construction debt at Prime plus 2.75 to 3.25 percent (28). A build-to-suit with a signed credit lease can still reach 70 to 80 percent loan to cost. Speculative retail is among the hardest product types to finance in the current market.

The pencil test: what new retail needs to rent for

Feasibility is MMCG's business, so this section shows the arithmetic rather than describing it. Regency Centers, the sector's most active merchant developer, disclosed $680 million of in-process development at a blended estimated yield of about 9 percent and said its ground-up projects are underwritten at 7 percent plus; its CEO described those yields as substantial spreads to market cap rates (12). That is the benchmark a private developer has to beat, with worse land, worse tenants and more expensive debt than Regency has.

MMCG's screen takes an all-in development cost per square foot by cost tier, applies a 7.5 percent untrended yield on cost, and compares the resulting required NNN rent to the average asking rent in each of the nine review metros. The cost tiers are built up from the fit-out, shell and pad ranges above plus land, sitework, soft costs, leasing costs and capitalized interest, and they are deliberately conservative toward the low end: $350 per square foot all in for a low-cost Sun Belt suburban neighborhood center, $400 for a mid-cost metro, $550 for a high-cost coastal metro.

Metro	Cost tier ($/SF all-in)	Required rent at 7.5% YOC	Market asking rent	Gap (asking less required)
Dallas-Fort Worth	$350	$26.25	$25.58	($0.67)
Houston	$350	$26.25	$24.97	($1.28)
Charlotte	$350	$26.25	$27.25	$1.00
Nashville	$350	$26.25	$31.36	$5.11
Phoenix	$400	$30.00	$27.18	($2.82)
Austin	$400	$30.00	$31.54	$1.54
Los Angeles	$550	$41.25	$36.87	($4.38)
San Francisco	$550	$41.25	$44.95	$3.70
New York	$550	$41.25	$54.44	$13.19
National	$400	$30.00	$26.21	($3.79)

Source: MMCG feasibility screen, September 2026. Asking rents from the MMCG national retail series (2). Cost tiers exclude public incentives.

The screen is illustrative and two caveats belong with it. First, average asking rent includes decades-old inventory; new construction rents run well above the metro average (the $55 NNN end-cap in Franklin, the pricing "well above market averages" that Dallas-Fort Worth landlords report on newly delivered space), so a well-located project can clear the bar the average cannot. Second, the New York and San Francisco columns pencil on rent and fail on land and entitlement, which the flat $550 tier understates badly in Manhattan. What the table shows is the shape of the problem: in the two largest pipelines in the country, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, a generic neighborhood center does not clear a 7.5 percent yield on average rent, which is why both pipelines are three-quarters pre-leased and grocery-anchored, and why municipal incentives have become the swing variable.

Those incentives are now routine in Texas. Under Chapter 380 and 381 of the Local Government Code a city or county can rebate up to 50 percent of its local sales tax, along with property tax rebates, fee waivers and grants (29). Forney approved a Chapter 380 agreement for a 161,251 square foot Costco; Haltom City approved one for a Costco Business Center opening in early 2027; New Braunfels signed a twenty-year sales tax rebate with Costco conditioned on a minimum $25 million investment (30, 31). A developer who cannot make the pencil test close on rent alone in Dallas-Fort Worth is, in practice, underwriting the 380 agreement.

For a lender reading a feasibility study on a proposed retail project, the practical translation is this. Ask for the untrended yield on cost and the spread to the exit cap rate before anything else. Below 7 percent, or below a 150 basis point spread, the project needs either a signed credit anchor, a public incentive that has cleared council with performance milestones attached, or a rent assumption that the study has to defend against the metro's actual new-build comps. A study that quotes the metro average asking rent as the stabilized rent for new product has answered the wrong question.

Capital markets: $79 billion of trades, a 7.4 percent cap rate and a Fed that hiked

Retail investment sales reached $78.6 billion over the trailing twelve months on the MMCG series, up 12.5 percent, across 23,698 transactions, and the modeled value of the U.S. retail stock stands at $2.92 trillion (2). Volume is back above pre-pandemic levels. Prices are not moving much: the modeled market price is $247 per square foot, up from $244 at the end of 2025, and the modeled cap rate has held at 7.3 to 7.4 percent for two years while the average cap rate on completed transactions runs at 6.8 percent, because what actually trades skews toward the better product (2).

The twenty-year series puts that in context. Retail's modeled cap rate was 7.8 percent in 2005, 7.4 percent at the 2007 peak, 8.5 percent at the 2010 trough, 7.2 percent in 2019, 6.9 percent at the 2022 low and 7.4 percent now. Price per square foot went from $162 in 2007 to $128 in 2010, $206 in 2019, $234 in 2022 and $247 today (2). Retail has repriced less than any other major property type in either direction, which is the statistical expression of a sector whose supply was fixed for a decade.

The cross-sector comparison is where retail's position becomes obvious. Across all property types, trailing sales volume is $367 billion, up 16 percent, on a modeled asset base of $13.5 trillion. Office trades at a modeled 8.71 percent cap rate with a 7.46 percent transaction cap rate, a gap that tells you the office that sells is not the office that is modeled. Multifamily is at 6.22 percent modeled and 6.53 percent on transactions, on $129.6 billion of volume. Industrial is at 7.38 percent modeled and 6.80 percent on transactions, on $97.7 billion of volume, up 24.6 percent. Retail is at 7.38 percent modeled and 6.80 percent on transactions, on $78.6 billion (2). Retail and industrial now price identically at the national level, which would have been an unthinkable sentence in 2021.

Independent sources corroborate the transaction cap rate. MSCI RCA's retail transaction cap rate was 7.0 percent on the twelve months to January 2026, on $72.8 billion of volume, up 39 percent (32). The Boulder Group's second quarter net lease survey put single-tenant retail at 6.60 percent (33). Agree Realty acquired 82 properties for $451.5 million in the second quarter at a 7.0 percent weighted average cap rate (15). Brixmor paid $70 million for the Lidl-anchored Mayfair Shopping Center in Commack, $46.5 million for the H-E-B-anchored Jones Crossing in College Station and $32.7 million for the Whole Foods-anchored Vintage Marketplace in Houston, all on July 1 (11). Kimco sold four Costco-anchored assets for about $127 million at a sub-6 percent unlevered IRR (8). In Nashville a Dutch Bros traded at a 5.40 percent cap rate and InvenTrust paid $88 million for the 324,000 square foot Nashville West power center at 98 percent occupancy (5). In Houston a 2026-built Shake Shack in Richmond traded at 5 percent and a 2025-built McDonald's in Manvel at 4 percent (17). In Austin a 4,900 square foot Chick-fil-A in Buda on a twenty-year lease traded at 4.25 percent (18). In Charlotte a 2011-built Taco Bell sold at $767 per square foot and a 5 percent cap rate while Northlake Mall sold to Hull Property Group for $39 million, or $54 per square foot, after years in special servicing and against a 2018 price of $248 million (34).

That last pair of Charlotte comps is the sector in one line. Net lease QSR at 5 percent and a B mall at $54 per square foot are both "retail." The public markets have priced this bifurcation for years: shopping center REITs traded at roughly a 6.9 percent implied cap rate and a 15 percent NAV discount at the start of 2026 (35), which is why 2026 became the year of the take-private. Ares closed its $1.7 billion acquisition of Whitestone REIT on July 14 (36); Blackstone, MW Group and DivcoWest agreed to take Alexander & Baldwin private at about $2.3 billion in March (37); Blackstone bought a sixteen-center Texas grocery portfolio for about $441.5 million, roughly $232 per square foot (38). Private capital is paying private-market cap rates for public portfolios because the arbitrage is there.

The rate environment turned against all of this in September. The Federal Open Market Committee raised the federal funds target range 25 basis points to 3.75 to 4.00 percent on September 16, its first increase since 2023, on a 12-0 vote, citing inflation that "remains elevated," and the median projection implies one more increase in 2026 with the rate held at 4.1 percent through 2027 (39). The ten-year Treasury closed at 5.01 percent on September 18 and 4.96 percent on September 21, against a twelve-month low of 3.97 percent last October (28). Headline CPI was 3.4 percent in August and core 2.4 percent, with month-over-month readings accelerating for a second month (40). A 6.8 percent transaction cap rate over a 5.0 percent ten-year is a spread of roughly 180 basis points, thin by any historical standard. Green Street's Peter Rothemund said the rise in Treasury yields is likely to cause buyers to rethink what they are willing to pay (41), and CBRE's survey respondents indicated the ten-year would need to fall toward 3.75 percent to spark renewed deal flow (42).

Two things partially offset the rate shock. The Federal Reserve's July Senior Loan Officer survey reported banks easing standards on commercial real estate loans by the most since early 2022, with demand unchanged to firmer (43), which is the credit-availability improvement that the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth transaction narratives both describe, with regional banks offering recourse loans as the most active lenders and family offices filling the post-rate-hike gap (17, 7). And the distress that is showing up in retail credit is concentrated in a subsegment that the transaction market has already written down. Trepp's retail CMBS delinquency rate reached 7.20 percent in August and the retail special servicing rate reached 13.60 percent, a thirteen-year high, driven by enclosed mall and large shopping center transfers (44). Those are the Westfield San Francisco Centre and Northlake Mall outcomes working through securitized debt. They are not the grocery-anchored center trading at 6.5 percent.

The base case for pricing through mid-2027 is therefore range-bound. The modeled 7.4 percent cap rate is defensible as a midpoint between private trades at 6.8 to 7.0 percent and REIT-implied pricing at 6.9 to 7.8 percent. If the ten-year holds above 5.0 percent into the fourth quarter, weaker product and malls should be underwritten 10 to 25 basis points wider. If it moves above 5.25 percent and stays there for two months, the revision should be broader.

The closure ledger, September 2026 update

MMCG's April tracker counted 8,270 U.S. store closures against 5,270 openings for 2025 on Coresight's revised series, with five bankrupt brands driving more than half of closure square footage (1). The 2026 ledger has turned out materially better than the start-of-year projection, and the reasons are structural.

Coresight's midyear review cut its full-year 2026 central estimate to about 6,428 closures and 4,482 openings, declines of 30.1 and 19.3 percent from 2025, down from the roughly 7,900 and 5,500 projected in January (45). Through July 3 the firm had tracked 3,321 closures, down 44.1 percent from 5,941 in the first half of 2025, against 3,215 openings, the lowest first-half opening count since 2020 (46). Retail bankruptcies at midyear numbered 10, against 32 in the same period of 2025, and Coresight's Philip Moore attributed most of the improvement to that fact directly (45). The average closed store shrank to 10,654 square feet from about 21,073 in the first half of 2025, a 49.4 percent reduction, because the 2026 closures are apparel and specialty (apparel alone was 1,090 closures, 32.8 percent of the total) rather than the drugstore, craft-anchor and big-box boxes that defined 2025 (45). On square footage, the cumulative net figure of 28.6 million square feet through August is well under a quarter of the 2025 pace (3).

The large distressed names resolved rather than liquidated. Saks Global's plan was confirmed on June 5 and took effect June 26; the company emerged as Exemplar Luxury Group with nearly 75 percent less debt, $500 million of new financing and a footprint of 49 luxury stores (33 Neiman Marcus, 15 Saks Fifth Avenue, one Bergdorf Goodman), having closed 24 department stores in 2026 and cut Saks Off 5th to 12 outlets (47). QVC Group's prepackaged plan was confirmed on July 15 and the company emerged on August 6 with debt cut from about $6.6 billion to $1.325 billion, vendors paid in full and a new $600 million facility led by Strategic Value Partners and Oaktree, a 112-day case (48). FAT Brands and Twin Hospitality went the other way, converting to a joint plan of liquidation confirmed July 27 and effective July 31, with Smokey Bones fully closed in April (49). Sleep Number filed on June 12 with a stalking-horse bid from Sleep Country Canada, a $260 million DIP and 570-plus stores kept open through the case, the one large clean new filing inside the window (50). Eddie Bauer moved into liquidation across roughly 180 U.S. and Canadian stores with the IP retained by Authentic Brands (46). American Signature and Value City Furniture completed their wind-down by March.

The pharmacy channel, which produced the largest single closure program of 2025 in Rite Aid's 1,240-store liquidation, has stabilized. Walgreens under Sycamore now expects fewer than 100 closures in 2026 against the roughly 700 implied by the original plan, with about 15 confirmed across 12 states by midyear (51). CVS is a net adder of stores for the first time in five years (1). Family Dollar, under Brigade and Macellum, closed at least 350 stores in its first ten months of standalone ownership, about one a day, and has 7,112 remaining with a smaller urban format announced in March (52).

Restaurants are the category where the 2026 closure count is rising rather than falling, exactly as the April tracker projected. Starbucks's March 8-K set out roughly 400 planned U.S. closures for the year under its $1 billion restructuring, with 48 in the second fiscal quarter alone and North American net store count guided down about 1 percent (53). Pizza Hut's 250 first-half U.S. closures under Hut Forward proceeded while Yum explored a sale of the brand (54); Papa John's guided to about 200 North American closures in 2026 on the way to 300 through 2027 (55); Wendy's Project Fresh targeted 298 to 358 first-half closures, 5 to 6 percent of its U.S. footprint (56). GameStop, having closed 727 U.S. stores in fiscal 2025 to reach about 1,598, told investors in its August 10-Q that it does not expect to close a significant number of locations in fiscal 2026 (57). Macy's Bold New Chapter program now runs through 2028 rather than 2026, with about 80 of 150 stores closed and Pittsburgh Mills the first 2026 casualty on April 26; Kohl's ruled out further 2026 closures (1). Newer programs on Coresight's weekly trackers include Petsense at 75 closures, Scrubs & Beyond going digital-only, Francesca's at about 457 expected and 7-Eleven at about 601 expected (3).

Against that, the backfill cohort is executing on plan and its 2026 additions exceed the announced closure programs in unit terms. Dollar General guided to about 450 new U.S. stores after 575 in 2025 (58). Aldi is opening 180-plus stores across 31 states, entering Colorado and Maine and converting about 80 former Southeastern Grocers locations (59). Five Below reaffirmed about 150 net new stores (60). Burlington raised its net new store target to about 115 (61). TJX guided to about 104 net new U.S. stores across Marmaxx, HomeGoods and Sierra and raised its long-term global target to 7,500 (62). Planet Fitness guided to 180 to 190 new clubs and stood at 2,930 at the end of June (63). Sprouts is adding 42 net new stores and reached 490 in June (64). Dutch Bros raised its opening target to at least 185 and had 1,225 shops by the second quarter (65). O'Reilly guided to 225 to 235 net new stores with 110 opened by June 30 (66); AutoZone to 355 to 365 globally with about 30 megahubs (67). Dick's is adding 14 House of Sport and about 22 Field House locations toward a 75 to 100 House of Sport target by 2027, each House of Sport around 100,000 square feet, which is the format that took the CoolSprings JCPenney (68). Raising Cane's opened its 1,000th restaurant on March 19 and had 65 openings through August toward about 100 for the year (69).

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The point for underwriting is not that closures have stopped. It is that the 2026 closures are small (10,654 square feet on average), specialty-led, and landing in a market whose largest space users are actively looking for exactly the boxes the 2025 closures created. The private-equity leverage signal from the April tracker still holds: the names that failed in 2025 were 2007 to 2013 vintage buyouts that could not carry their capital structures at a 4 percent Fed funds rate, and the September hike makes that arithmetic slightly worse for whoever is left. But the department-store and drugstore waves have passed, and Coresight's own numbers say the bankruptcy count fell by two-thirds.

The consumer underneath it

Everything above depends on tenants continuing to want space, which depends on the consumer, and the consumer in September 2026 is best described as spending on credit with a bad mood.

August retail and food services sales were $773.9 billion, up 6.0 percent year over year and 1.2 percent on the month (70). Against headline CPI of 3.4 percent, real growth is about 2.5 percent, and even that is flattered by gasoline stations at plus 21.0 percent, which is a price effect from the Strait of Hormuz disruption rather than volume (70, 40). Grocery stores grew 0.5 percent nominal, which is negative in real terms. General merchandise grew 4.5 percent, food services 5.8 percent, clothing 4.3 percent, building materials 5.1 percent and nonstore retailers 9.9 percent (70). E-commerce reached 17.1 percent of retail sales in the second quarter, up from 16.3 percent a year earlier and 10.7 percent in 2019, growing at nearly twice the pace of total retail (71). The share is still creeping up. It is not stepping up, and the physical stores that remain are more productive per square foot than they have ever been.

The household balance sheet is the concern. Real disposable personal income was up 0.45 percent year over year in July and the personal saving rate was 3.0 percent (72). Credit card balances reached $1.26 trillion in the second quarter, up $21 billion, with the serious delinquency transition rate at 6.97 percent and aggregate delinquency at 4.7 percent of outstanding debt; the New York Fed's Daniel Floro said a subset of consumers, primarily subprime borrowers, has driven most of the increase while prime borrowers have seen only marginal deterioration (73). The University of Michigan's preliminary September sentiment index came in at 47.8, down from 51.7 in August, below the level at the start of every recession since the series began, with year-ahead inflation expectations at 4.6 percent (74). Spending growth is being funded by savings drawdown and revolving credit, not by income.

Tariffs are now a measurable input. The de minimis exemption is gone for all countries, made indefinite by an interim final rule effective June 24 and upheld by the Court of International Trade on August 13 (75). The New York Fed and NBER estimate that about 26 percent of the 2025 tariff increase has passed through to consumer prices, with the indirect effect taking nine to twelve months (76), and the Minneapolis Fed put the contribution to core inflation at 0.2 to 0.4 percentage points as of July (77). Apparel CPI was up 3.6 percent in August. For the mall-specialty apparel tenants that drove a third of 2026 closures, that is margin coming out of a category that was already losing share to off-price and to the Shein and Temu channel the de minimis closure was meant to blunt.

The traffic data is the counterweight, and it explains why the leasing numbers look the way they do. Placer.ai's mall index showed open-air center visits up 4.7 percent in the first half and 5.1 percent in July, indoor malls up 1.9 percent and 4.3 percent, outlets up 1.0 percent, with grocery visits consistently positive on more frequent, smaller trips from lower- and middle-income households (78). Dwell times fell even as visits rose. Shoppers are making more trips and shorter ones, to grocery, off-price, dollar and fitness formats, which are precisely the tenants leasing the vacated boxes. The K-shaped consumer is real, and both halves of the K are buying in physical stores.

The MMCG Retail Market Health Index: 171 markets ranked

To give the geographic story a single defensible ranking, MMCG built a composite health score for every one of the 171 markets in the national series. Each market is percentile-ranked on four measures and the percentiles are weighted: vacancy rate (35 percent, lower is better), twelve-month net absorption as a share of inventory (30 percent), twelve-month asking rent growth (25 percent) and unleased pipeline as a share of inventory (10 percent, lower is better, computed as under-construction square footage times the share not pre-leased). The score runs from 0 to 100. Small markets with a single tenant move can score at the extremes, so the table below shows the 44 markets with at least 100 million square feet of inventory, which together hold 78 percent of U.S. retail space. The full 171-market table with all inputs is in the downloadable index file that accompanies this report.

Rank (of 171)	Market	Score	Vacancy	Absorption % inv	Rent growth 12-mo	UC % inv	Pre-leased
9	Minneapolis	77.0	2.6%	0.4%	3.6%	0.2%	88.5%
23	Nashville	70.3	3.3%	0.7%	4.8%	0.7%	41.7%
27	Columbus	68.5	3.2%	0.3%	4.5%	0.1%	81.5%
29	Indianapolis	68.0	3.2%	0.6%	2.2%	0.6%	71.4%
34	Charlotte	66.0	3.4%	0.4%	5.0%	1.0%	87.2%
41	San Antonio	63.0	4.0%	0.7%	3.5%	0.6%	60.7%
43	Northern New Jersey	62.3	3.2%	0.0%	4.2%	0.1%	63.5%
46	Austin	61.8	3.5%	1.5%	1.1%	2.2%	70.1%
48	Phoenix	60.4	4.6%	1.2%	4.4%	1.0%	85.5%
50	Tampa	59.7	3.6%	0.2%	2.7%	0.5%	83.2%
53	Saint Louis	59.6	3.8%	0.2%	3.3%	0.3%	90.4%
55	Milwaukee	59.5	3.6%	0.0%	5.7%	0.3%	98.8%
56	Cincinnati	58.9	4.2%	0.4%	5.5%	0.8%	90.5%
58	Orlando	58.4	3.9%	0.4%	2.3%	0.4%	58.8%
75	Dallas-Fort Worth	52.1	5.1%	0.9%	1.9%	1.5%	73.7%
78	Las Vegas	51.4	4.9%	0.7%	2.6%	1.3%	50.6%
79	Detroit	51.3	4.8%	0.8%	1.5%	0.3%	83.8%
81	Miami	50.8	3.1%	(0.2%)	1.4%	0.9%	94.8%
84	Boston	50.7	2.6%	(0.2%)	0.6%	0.2%	96.1%
86	Norfolk	50.4	4.4%	0.1%	2.9%	0.3%	94.7%
94	Inland Empire	48.2	6.1%	0.7%	3.2%	0.6%	75.0%
101	Jacksonville	46.8	4.8%	0.2%	3.1%	0.9%	87.0%
109	Long Island	45.3	4.3%	0.0%	1.7%	0.6%	94.1%
111	Seattle	44.7	4.1%	0.1%	0.8%	0.1%	70.9%
113	Fort Lauderdale	43.6	4.1%	(0.1%)	1.5%	0.6%	97.9%
116	Atlanta	43.0	4.5%	0.0%	2.7%	0.3%	80.8%
120	Chicago	39.6	5.0%	0.0%	2.4%	0.3%	73.2%
121	New York	39.6	4.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%	73.7%
123	Orange County	39.4	3.5%	(0.2%)	0.4%	0.2%	76.4%
124	East Bay	38.5	5.8%	0.0%	2.0%	0.1%	83.9%
125	Houston	38.0	5.3%	0.3%	1.2%	1.2%	74.0%
127	Baltimore	37.6	5.5%	(0.1%)	3.4%	0.2%	66.5%
128	Washington	37.6	4.6%	(0.4%)	3.3%	0.5%	67.3%
133	Providence	36.3	3.4%	(0.1%)	(0.3%)	0.1%	60.6%
136	Kansas City	35.5	4.8%	(0.3%)	2.9%	0.4%	61.8%
137	Philadelphia	35.5	4.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	91.4%
138	Denver	35.4	4.5%	0.0%	1.0%	0.9%	94.0%
141	Sacramento	35.1	6.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%	80.6%
147	Pittsburgh	32.7	4.3%	0.2%	(1.9%)	0.2%	89.1%
150	San Diego	30.9	4.3%	0.1%	(1.2%)	0.1%	71.3%
157	Portland	26.5	4.4%	0.0%	(1.5%)	0.1%	74.3%
159	Cleveland	26.2	5.0%	(0.2%)	0.4%	0.1%	79.4%
160	Oklahoma City	26.2	5.9%	(0.1%)	0.7%	0.7%	94.8%
168	Los Angeles	17.0	5.9%	0.0%	(1.1%)	0.2%	66.0%

Source: MMCG Retail Market Health Index, September 2026, computed from the MMCG national retail series (2).

Several things in that table are not obvious from the usual Sun Belt narrative. Minneapolis is the healthiest major retail market in the country on these measures, with 2.6 percent vacancy, 3.6 percent rent growth and a pipeline of 0.2 percent of inventory. Columbus, Indianapolis, Saint Louis, Milwaukee and Cincinnati all sit in the top third: the Midwest reacceleration is a decade of no construction finally meeting stable demand. Nashville and Charlotte are where you would expect them. Dallas-Fort Worth ranks 75th and Houston 125th, not because demand is weak (Dallas-Fort Worth absorbed 4.1 million square feet, the most of any market in the country) but because the two largest pipelines in the nation have pushed vacancy to 5.1 and 5.3 percent and rent growth to 1.9 and 1.2 percent. Austin ranks 46th on the same logic, with 1.5 percent of inventory absorbed but rent growth of only 1.1 percent. The high-growth Texas metros are the only places in the country where supply is a live variable in the underwriting.

The bottom of the major-market table is the Rust Belt and the West Coast together. Los Angeles ranks 168th of 171 on 5.9 percent vacancy, zero net absorption and negative 1.1 percent rent growth. Portland, San Diego and Pittsburgh all have negative rent growth. Cleveland and Oklahoma City combine 5 to 6 percent vacancy with flat absorption. Washington posted the worst twelve-month absorption of any market in the country at negative 917,000 square feet, and Memphis (ranked 153rd, below the 100-million threshold) posted negative 602,000 (2). Among the smaller markets, Dayton's asking rent fell 10.9 percent annualized in the current quarter and Greensboro's fell 8.0 percent.

Aggregating the index by region confirms the direction but undercuts the size of the gap. Nineteen Sun Belt markets, holding 3.2 billion square feet, carry a weighted vacancy of 4.3 percent, absorbed 0.5 percent of inventory over the past year and grew rents 2.7 percent, with 1.0 percent of inventory under construction. Eighteen Midwest and Rust Belt markets, holding 2.3 billion square feet, carry 4.5 percent vacancy, absorbed 0.1 percent and grew rents 2.1 percent, with 0.3 percent under construction (2). The Sun Belt wins on every measure, but by less than the closure headlines implied, because the Sun Belt is also where the new supply is.

Outlook, 2027 to 2030

The forecast embedded in the MMCG national series has vacancy flat at 4.3 percent through 2030, net absorption of 24 to 29 million square feet a year, inventory growth of 19 to 31 million square feet a year, and asking rent growth reaccelerating from 1.6 percent this year to 2.6 percent in 2027, 2.5 percent in 2028 and 2.3 to 2.4 percent thereafter, taking the national asking rent from $26.21 to $29.07 by 2030 (2). The modeled cap rate drifts from 7.4 percent to 7.1 percent by 2030 and the modeled price from $247 to $285 per square foot. By format, general retail vacancy stays at 2.8 percent, neighborhood centers tighten from 6.4 to 6.2 percent, strip centers hold at 5.0 to 5.1 percent and malls edge from 8.2 to 8.1 percent as inventory keeps shrinking.

That is the base case, and MMCG's view is that it is the most probable case, but a forecast built before September 16 needs its risks restated.

The base case (MMCG probability roughly 55 percent) is the series forecast with a slower rent path. Openings continue to exceed closures, the 2026 closure count lands near Coresight's 6,400, the backfill cohort's 2026 and 2027 store programs execute, and the pipeline stays three-quarters pre-leased. Rent growth reaccelerates but toward 2.0 to 2.3 percent rather than 2.6 percent, because the September hike delays the tenant expansion that would otherwise drive it. Cap rates hold at 7.3 to 7.5 percent. Retail values are flat to up low single digits.

The downside case (roughly 30 percent) is the consumer case. Sentiment at 47.8, a 3.0 percent saving rate and 6.97 percent credit card delinquency transitions turn into two consecutive quarters of negative open-air traffic; the restaurant closure programs (Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Papa John's, Wendy's) are joined by a second wave of PE-levered casual dining and specialty filings as the maturity wall meets a 4 percent Fed funds rate; Coresight's top-of-range 8,228 closures becomes the number. Vacancy drifts to 4.6 to 4.8 percent, rent growth goes flat, and a ten-year sustained above 5.25 percent pushes transaction cap rates 25 to 50 basis points wider, with malls and unanchored centers taking the brunt. Even in this case the supply cushion holds: the pipeline cannot expand in a downturn, and 4.8 percent would still be below every year before 2021.

The upside case (roughly 15 percent) requires the Fed to reverse. Inflation breaks lower, the signaled second hike does not happen, the ten-year returns to 4.25 percent, and the transaction market that CBRE's respondents said needs a 3.75 percent ten-year gets close enough. Cap rates compress 25 basis points, volume runs $90 billion plus, and the leased-not-commenced pipeline at the shopping center REITs converts to cash NOI on schedule in 2027.

Whichever case plays out, three structural facts do not change. Inventory will grow at 0.2 to 0.3 percent a year because the pencil test fails on average rent almost everywhere. Demolitions and conversions will keep removing obsolete stock, so net growth will be lower still. And the tenant base that wants space is the value, grocery, fitness and QSR cohort whose store programs are funded by their own cash flow rather than by leveraged buyouts. Retail's supply constraint is structural, and it will outlast this rate cycle.

What this means for a lender's feasibility study

MMCG writes third-party feasibility studies for SBA 7(a), SBA 504, USDA B&I and conventional lenders, and the retail sections of those studies have to answer specific questions. The 2026 data changes some of the answers.

On demand, the study should be built on real growth of roughly 2 to 2.5 percent, not the 6 percent nominal headline, and should exclude gasoline from any trade-area sales calculation. A grocery-anchored or value-format project should be underwritten to flat-to-low real growth with a downside scenario tied to the subprime cohort; a threshold worth writing into the study is a credit card serious delinquency transition rate above roughly 7.5 percent, which would signal the K-shaped stress deepening.

On supply, the study should state the market's pipeline as a percent of inventory and its pre-leased share, and it should name the unleased pipeline square footage in the subject's trade area. In 41 of 171 markets that number is zero and the supply section can be short. In Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Charlotte it is the section the lender will read most closely.

On rent, the stabilized rent for new product has to be supported by new-build comps, not by the metro average asking rent, and the gap between the two should be shown. A study that cannot find new-build comps in the trade area is telling the lender something about feasibility that it should say out loud.

On cost and yield, the study should show untrended yield on cost against the exit cap rate, carry escalation of 4 to 5 percent a year to the construction midpoint as its own line item rather than burying it in contingency, and model any public incentive explicitly with its council approval date and performance milestones. Below a 7 percent yield or a 150 basis point spread, the study should say the project depends on the anchor lease, the incentive or both.

On exit, the study should segment. Net lease QSR at 5 to 6 percent, grocery-anchored at 6.0 to 6.8 percent, unanchored strip at 7 to 8 percent, and an explicit statement that the modeled 7.4 percent national cap rate is a blended figure that applies to none of them individually. If the subject is a mall or a large multi-tenant center in a secondary location, the retail CMBS special servicing rate of 13.6 percent is the relevant context and should be cited.

And on the closure risk that every lender now asks about, the study should list the subject's tenants against the current closure programs and the backfill cohort by name. A center whose anchor is Dollar General, Aldi, Burlington, Five Below, Planet Fitness or Sprouts is on the right side of the ledger. A center whose anchor is a 2007 to 2013 vintage private-equity portfolio company in casual dining or specialty apparel is not, and the study should model the recapture at market rent rather than assume the lease runs to term.

The 2025 closure wave was the best thing that happened to well-located retail real estate in a decade, because it handed the tenants who wanted space the boxes they could not find. The 2026 data says that trade is most of the way through. What is left is a sector with 4.3 percent vacancy, a pipeline that cannot grow, a consumer spending on credit and a Fed moving the wrong way. Retail will not be the property type that breaks in this rate cycle. It will be the one that goes sideways, and sideways at 4.3 percent vacancy is a position most other property types would take.

FAQ

What is the U.S. retail vacancy rate in 2026?

The MMCG national retail series, covering 11.74 billion square feet across 171 markets, puts all-retail vacancy at 4.3 percent as of the third quarter of 2026, unchanged from year-end 2025 and up 20 basis points from year-end 2024. Shopping-center-only series that exclude malls, outlets and freestanding retail report about 6.0 percent. The two measure different inventories.

How much retail space did store closures vacate in 2025, and what happened to it?

Roughly 127 million square feet of closures were announced in 2025, with five bankrupt brands (Rite Aid, Joann, Party City, Big Lots, Forever 21) driving more than half. National net absorption for the year was negative 0.5 million square feet, which means tenants moved into approximately 126 million square feet over the same period. Grocers, off-price, discount variety, fitness and QSR operators backfilled the boxes, and the shopping center REITs re-leased them at 30 to 40 percent above expiring rent.

Are store closures getting worse in 2026?

No. Coresight's midyear revision cut its 2026 central estimate to about 6,428 closures and 4,482 openings, declines of 30 and 19 percent from 2025. Retail bankruptcies fell to 10 at midyear from 32 a year earlier, and the average closed store shrank to 10,654 square feet. Restaurants are the exception, with Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Papa John's and Wendy's all running 2026 closure programs.

What are retail cap rates in 2026?

The MMCG series models the national retail cap rate at 7.4 percent, with completed transactions averaging 6.8 percent. Net lease QSR trades at 4 to 6 percent, grocery-anchored centers at roughly 6.0 to 6.8 percent, unanchored strip centers at 7 to 8 percent, and B malls at distressed prices with cap rates rarely disclosed. Retail and industrial now carry the same 7.38 percent modeled national cap rate.

Why is so little retail being built when vacancy is this low?

Because new retail does not pencil on average market rent. At an all-in cost of $350 to $550 per square foot and a 7.5 percent required yield on cost, a project needs $26 to $41 per square foot in NNN rent, against a national asking rent of $26.21. Construction costs rose about 5 percent in the past year on tariffs and labor, construction debt prices at SOFR plus 275 to 400 basis points at 55 to 65 percent loan to cost, and lenders require pre-leasing. The 57.5 million square feet under construction is 78 percent pre-leased and 30.5 percent of it sits in four Texas and Arizona metros.

How did the September 2026 Fed hike affect retail real estate?

The 25 basis point increase to 3.75 to 4.00 percent, with a ten-year Treasury near 5.0 percent, compressed the spread between retail transaction cap rates and the risk-free rate to roughly 180 basis points. The likely effect is range-bound pricing through mid-2027, with weaker product and malls underwritten 10 to 25 basis points wider if the ten-year holds above 5 percent. Bank credit standards for commercial real estate eased in the July survey, which partially offsets the rate move.

Which U.S. retail markets are healthiest in 2026?

On the MMCG Retail Market Health Index, which ranks all 171 markets on vacancy, absorption, rent growth and unleased pipeline, the strongest major markets are Minneapolis, Nashville, Columbus, Indianapolis, Charlotte, San Antonio, Northern New Jersey, Austin, Phoenix and Tampa. The weakest majors are Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Portland, San Diego and Pittsburgh. Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston rank mid-table because their pipelines have lifted vacancy above 5 percent.

Does a feasibility study for an SBA or USDA retail loan need to address store closures?

Yes, and the useful way to do it is by name: list the subject's tenants and the trade area's anchors against the current closure programs and the expanding backfill cohort, model recapture of any tenant on a private-equity-levered capital structure at market rent rather than to lease term, and state the trade area's unleased pipeline square footage. MMCG's studies for SBA 7(a), SBA 504 and USDA B&I lenders now carry that analysis as a standard section.

September 22, 2026 by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA, Principal of MMCG Invest, LLC

Michal Mohelsky, J.D. | Principal | mmcginvest.com 

Contact: michal@mmcginvest.com

Phone: (628) 225-1125

MMCG Invest, LLC provides independent, third-party feasibility studies for SBA 7(a), SBA 504, USDA B&I, USDA REAP, USDA Community Facilities and conventional loan programs across more than 30 commercial real estate asset classes, prepared under USPAP discipline and backed by a written acceptance guarantee. For engagement inquiries, contact michal@mmcginvest.com or (628) 225-1125.

Sources

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78. Placer.ai, Mall Index and 2026 foot traffic reports, July 2026, as reported by Chain Store Age and eMarketer.

    
    
79. 
    

Disclaimer: This report is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Data presented herein is derived from MMCG's proprietary series and third-party sources believed to be reliable; MMCG Invest makes no representation as to the accuracy or completeness of such information. Figures from third-party databases have been independently verified and, where appropriate, adjusted to reflect MMCG's proprietary analytical methodology. Past performance is not indicative of future results.