Median household income is often used as a catchall demand driver for retail performance. In theory, higher‑ income areas should support stronger consumer spending, healthier tenant sales and lower retail vacancies.
At a national level, this assumption generally holds. Wealthier regions tend to outperform lower‑income ones, particularly over long cycles. But at the submarket level, this relationship breaks down.
When retail vacancy is evaluated alongside median income at a more granular scale, a far more inconsistent and noisier pattern is revealed. Retail performance is increasingly determined not by the wealth of nearby households, but by the availability of desirable retail space. Income still matters, but it has increasingly weaker pred...
