Along with face masks, hand sanitizers and social distancing, there is one more phrase that we’ve heard almost ad-nauseam throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic: Essential business. In the world of net lease, that phrase boils down to essential retail, and the list of contenders in this arena are up for serious consideration by investors looking for relative safe havens in an economy rocked by the pandemic.
But qualifying in a category in and of itself doesn’t amount to stability, and pre-investment due diligence, always a hallmark of smart investment, becomes even more critical today in the midst of the national pandemic-induced retail slowdown.