By Evan Lyons, Encore Real Estate Investment Services Call it what you will — Motown, the Motor City, the Comeback City — by any name, the city of Detroit has long been a place of possibilities. A smart student in the school of hard knocks, Detroit has teetered on failure, yet still managed to graduate with high marks. Best known as the birthplace of the automobile and home to Motown music’s Hitsville USA, Detroit went from being the driver of American capitalism to a city in ruin. It endured population decline in the ’50s, rioting in the ’60s, the collapse of the auto industry in the late ’70s and ’80s, and in 2013, the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, yet somehow emerged as a hot spot for high rollers and hipsters alike. As 2019 winded down, Detroit and the surrounding Southeast Michigan area boasted a healthy economy. The automotive industry, a key driver of the region, posted better than expected sales of cars and trucks in the fourth quarter of 2019, beating projections. Employment was on the uptick both in the city and across the state. Southeast Michigan appeared positioned for growth in 2020. The same held true for …
Market Reports
By Drew Sanden, Senior Managing Director, Newmark The Inland Empire office market boasted very strong fundamentals heading into 2020. The vacancy rate across the 28.3 million-square-foot base was 9.5 percent, lease rates were reaching peak levels and developers were again exploring larger spec developments. Like many markets across the U.S., COVID-19 has greatly impacted the Inland Empire’s office market. Office usage, demand, absorption and leasing transactions are down year-over-year. Large back-office transaction volume has been the most impacted as companies struggle to manage the social distancing guidelines. With that said, the suburban nature of the Inland Empire has helped insulate the office market. The combination of affordable housing (relative to Southern California’s coastal communities) and remote work opportunities have strengthened the overall workforce. This pandemic has acted as an accelerator for the hub-and-spoke trend where companies have larger regional offices in CBDs like Los Angeles and Irvine, while maintaining smaller satellite offices in suburban markets. We’ve seen an influx of small satellite offices in Corona, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Riverside. Demand for medical office building (MOB) leasing and sales has remained strong. This trend was highlighted with the pre-sale of two medical office buildings at the Rincon in Chino Hills, …
This time last year, we were commenting on the changing retail market, but we were overall very optimistic about 2020. What a difference a year makes! Across the United States, 2020 brought us the closing of the following: 279 SteinMart stores; 1,100 Ann Taylor stores; 950 Pier 1 Imports stores; 350 Gap stores; 248 GNC stores; 145 A.C. Moore stores; 230 Tuesday Morning stores; and 178 Forever 21 stores. Additionally, Macy’s closed 29 stores in 2020 and expects to close another 45 in 2021. This trend of retail store closings will slow down in 2021, but it will not change. On the positive side, retailers such as Walmart, Target, The Home Depot, Lowe’s Home Improvement and Walgreens have seen positive sales numbers and continue to expand. In the supermarket sector, Kroger, Food Lion and Publix have had record numbers and, along with Aldi and Lidl, are expanding. In the Raleigh-Durham market, our 2020 vacancy rate has increased to 8.24 percent and rental rates have hovered in the $18 to $20 per square foot range, but those numbers are skewed due to rent concessions and abatements. Raleigh-Durham has approximately 86.6 million square feet of retail space with around 640,000 square feet …
By Amy Ogden, Logic Commercial Real Estate This was an unprecedented year in a multitude of ways. Though the pandemic brought economic hardships — along with the world’s worst health crisis — it also opened our eyes to how quickly life can change overnight. Businesses reacted to the crisis as best and swiftly as they could to comply with state stay at home orders, capacity reductions, and the fear and panic that ensued. Little did we know that we would be desperately seeking toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and embracing online grocery shopping and food delivery with such intensity by early March. The aforementioned, in turn, created a domino effect as the pandemic became the catalyst for a boom in the industrial real estate sector. Ecommerce has grown more over the past year than it ever has. These occupiers have seen their five-year trajectory of forecasted retail sales occur in just six months. The rise of ecommerce has forever altered consumer buying behavior and expectations. With consumers now anticipating fast shipping and deliveries, there is now a strain on the traditional logistics and supply chain models. This has subsequently resulted in a heightened need for warehouse, fulfillment and distribution properties as …
By Mark Wolf, CEO and founder, AHV Communities The single-family rental (SFR) sector began its institutionalization during the Global Financial Crisis when so many homeowners found themselves unable to pay their mortgages. The mass quantity of repossessed homes was sold off on courthouse steps or at large in-person or online auctions, with mega-landlords amassing the homes and renting them out as investments. At the time, that business model was the only one widely recognized or, notably, well capitalized. However, the sector would not ultimately remain a one-trick pony. Alternate visions for single-family rentals have subsequently emerged. The most widely known model, which is oftentimes incorrectly characterized today, is the purpose-built rental community. Built from the ground up and delivered as a contiguous, cohesive communities — basically the opposite of existing randomly located distressed homes purchased and leased — the purpose-built SFR community is on the rise. Texas is currently one of the hottest states for new development of these communities. The activity is undoubtedly fueled by the ongoing in-migration of individuals and families from other states flooding into the Lone Star State in favor of lower taxes, high quality of life, friendly business climate and an overall affordable cost of …
The Raleigh-Durham commercial real estate market continues to be one of growth and perseverance despite the global pandemic. Its economy is rich with an array of industries, healthcare and university systems that support population growth and expansion. Commercial real estate is experiencing its own challenges and opportunities through this pandemic, including one of the most talked about asset classes, office. The sector is the subject of the big “pause” discussion as there’s uncertainty going forward. Despite the lack of commitment to many significant leases, the office market’s fundamentals have remained stable in Raleigh-Durham. Rates are holding steady with an average Class A rental rate of $29.59 per square foot. Vacancy and absorption are maintaining competitive levels, allowing market rates to hold somewhat steady. Over the last year, activity reflected these trends as many landlords negotiated short-term renewals without rate increases. If the leasing trend continues this year, renewals and space consolidation will possibly lead to a reduction in rental rates. One of the key driving forces of office product in Raleigh-Durham stems from the life sciences industry. The market is currently ranked No. 5 among life sciences markets in the United States, according to CBRE’s annual report. The life sciences …
By Taylor Williams The decision by Institutional Property Advisors (IPA), a division of Marcus & Millichap, to recently bring its investment sales services for the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) industrial market not only represents an opportunity to gain share of a booming market, but also to capitalize on a pronounced shift in buying patterns. COVID-19 has drastically accelerated demand for e-commerce services and industrial space on the leasing front. As investors that put new acquisitions on hold early in the pandemic regain their aggressiveness and as more capital sources diversify into the asset class, the line between requirements for institutional and private investors is growing blurrier. Ultimately, the shift in investment philosophy for industrial product in major markets boils down to private buyers targeting assets that have typically been considered institutional quality. This trend is a factor of several marketplace tendencies: the cautiousness with which institutional capital proceeds, the willingness of private investors to accept lower returns and the general mixing up of the Tier 1 industrial buyer pool. Like demand for industrial product from both tenants and the capital markets, the creeping of private buyers into the institutional space was taking place before the pandemic. But the overlap has become …
By Gabe Tovar, John Duvall and Kyle Tucker of NorthMarq The Kansas City multifamily market has proved it is more than resilient in the face of adversity. Throughout 2020, the market ranked consistently in the top 10 of 30 markets tracked by Yardi. It logged higher occupancies and rent growth, all while welcoming a record level of new supply. That stellar performance is likely to attract even more capital to the market in 2021. The story dominating the Kansas City market in recent years has been its booming development pipeline. Despite shutdowns and delays caused by the pandemic, developers delivered nearly 5,900 new units in 2020. That volume represents a record-high growth rate of 4.1 percent added to Kansas City’s market-rate inventory, compared with an annual average rate of 2 to 3 percent throughout the past decade. Looking ahead, that supply wave has crested, and the pipeline is shifting to the suburbs. NorthMarq forecasts completions over the next two years to average closer to 4,000 units with 70 to 75 percent of those opening across the suburban submarkets. In recent years, between 40 and 50 percent of total deliveries were concentrated in the urban core, so while this data supports …
By Cray Carlson, CBRE With 2020 coming to an end, we look back at a year of much uncertainty, confusion and unprecedented restrictions. Yet amidst all that, the Inland Empire multifamily market has been going steady, continuing to thrive in spite of some substantial drops in sales volumes. Total multifamily sales of eight units and larger in the Inland Empire were $2.5 billion in 2018 and $2.1 billion in 2019. That compares with only $1.09 billion in 2020, as of October. We expect total sales volumes in the area could ultimately show a reduction of up to 40 percent for the full year. So, how is the Inland Empire maintaining its title as one of the strongest apartment markets in the nation? Collections A recent housing and employment study examined the ability for renters to make their rent payments. The Inland Empire led the category of households caught up on those payments. Respondents also indicated a high confidence level in their ability to meet their future lease obligations. Among the 15 metros surveyed, the Inland Empire ranked second. Vacancy Rates Rent vacancies have decrease in the Inland Empire to as low as 3.7 percent as rent growth has risen 6.2 …
Nearly three full quarters into the COVID-19 pandemic, no real estate asset class in the Washington, D.C., metro area has shown less macro-level distress than the industrial market. In fact, the industrial market may have actually benefited from the pandemic. Despite the immediate drop in demand and activity that resulted in the second quarter, the metro industrial market has bounced back and posted positive gains in both leasing activity and new construction. No other asset class can claim that in the D.C. area. Much of the industrial activity is centered in Northern Virginia, but Suburban Maryland has remained healthy as well. At the end of the third quarter, the overall vacancy rate for warehouse/logistics space, flex and service center industrial buildings stood at 6.2 percent. Unlike many industrial markets, the Washington, D.C., MSA is a service economy with more than 260 million square feet of space. Early industrial development around the Capital Beltway/Interstate 495 served to support an ever-growing population base driven by the federal government and its contractors. This, however, has changed in the past decade, with high-tech companies entering and dominating the market. Fueling D.C.’s healthy market is its high barrier to entry. Much of the development that …