By Taylor Williams The combination of dwindling vacancies and skyrocketing construction costs is beginning to have a marginally negative impact on the confidence that industrial brokers across major U.S. markets have in their chosen property type, according to the latest sentiment report from the Society of Industrial & Office Realtors (SIOR). For the first time in the report’s history, the average sentiment of industrial brokers that carry the designation, while still very bullish overall, dropped below eight on a scale of one to 10. Specifically, overall sentiment fell from 8.2 in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 7.7 in the first quarter of 2022. The report also identified an environment of rising interest rates as an additional detractor on industry sentiment, though that factor is not unique to the industrial sector. With industrial users heavily investing in their supply chains amid the pandemic and e-commerce boom, there’s simply very little Class A space to be had, especially within infill locations in core markets. Disruptions within those same supply chains have helped drive costs of construction materials and timelines for projects to way-above-average levels, putting further downward pressure on supply growth. As a result, overall industrial leasing activity has slowed. According …
