The continued emergence of the e-commerce sector, and continued healthy deal volume among New Jersey’s “traditional” industrial tenants are generating significant momentum for the state’s industrial market. This includes the food, retail and consumer products industries. Strengthening fundamentals have reinforced this theme consistently over the past 24 months, or longer. During 2015, robust demand for modern warehouse space fueled the markets along the New Jersey Turnpike, pushing the state’s warehouse and distribution vacancy to a 15-year low (6.4 percent). This marks a significant five-year drop from a peak of 11.2 percent at the close of 2010. Additionally, the state’s industrial net absorption reached an all-time annual high (12.5 million square feet). Of this, 84 percent occurred within warehouse/distribution product. Big-box demand continues unabated. Currently, we are tracking multiple 1 million-square-foot requirements — the most we’ve seen in many years. Additionally, and importantly, the heightened focus on last-mile delivery is drawing tenants to small and mid-size infill sites. These range from close-in locations providing immediate access to New York City and Philadelphia, to densely populated hubs all along the New Jersey Turnpike. As vacancy rates approach all-time lows and available inventory tightens, an increasing number of deals involve Class B assets. …
Ten years ago, the urban Nashville multifamily inventory consisted of a small handful of institutional-sized assets, offering sparse amenities and unit finishes that left much to be desired. Fast forward to 2016 and the seemingly insatiable demand by residents to live in the eclectic, urban enclaves that Nashville offers has resulted in more than 5,000 units delivered over the last few years, with nearly 8,000 additional units set to deliver over the next two years. The standard of the assets being delivered continues to raise the bar, as developers look for a competitive edge and renters have demonstrated their willingness to pay a premium, with rents in top locations flirting with $3.00 per square foot. Demand The absorption pace has accelerated each year, seemingly limited only by the number of units being delivered to the market. When looking at the entire metro area, not just the urban submarkets, absorption topped 6,000 units in 2015, with new supply totaling approximately 5,960 units. A significant portion of this demand is from Millennials, who traditionally prefer to live in urban neighborhoods, and with Nashville ranked as a top 10 destination for Millennial in-migration, this trend is likely to continue. Fueling the urban residential …
For the Dayton office market, it’s all about timing. In one of Miami Valley’s largest office leases in recent memory, CareSource early this year signed a five-year lease to occupy 50,000 square feet on two floors at the 486,000-square-foot Kettering Tower downtown. The nonprofit managed healthcare plan is the largest Medicaid plan in Ohio and the second largest in the United States. CareSource said it will assess current and future business needs and redistribute business units from corporate headquarters and offices at 40 W. Second St. to Kettering Tower. In addition, some staff hired during the first quarter of this year also will be placed at the new location. The CareSource location at Kettering Tower increases the company’s footprint to nearly 600,000 square feet in downtown Dayton. The four downtown Dayton locations — including CareSource’s corporate headquarters at 230 N. Main St., Ballpark Village at 220 E. Monument Ave., offices at 40 W. Second St. and Kettering Tower will support 2,200 staff. The $6 million build-out of the multi-tenant Kettering Tower is specifically designed to accommodate CareSource. Tower Partners LLC, an entity whose investors include New York businessman Albert Macanian, owns the building. But the deal bringing 300 new jobs …
With a three-year average occupancy of 96 percent, Omaha’s apartment market has displayed strong fundamentals that we expect to continue this year and beyond. Given the strong tailwinds created by Omaha’s healthy economy — the local unemployment rate stood at 3.6 percent in January compared with 4.9 percent nationally — it is not surprising that occupancy is high, rents and revenues are rising and new developments continue. According to the recently released IREM fall 2015 Omaha Metropolitan Area Apartment Survey, the year-end market occupancy rate was a strong 96 percent, with the lowest submarket at 94 percent and the highest at an outstanding 98 percent. On a 10-year historical basis, the Omaha market’s occupancy rate has ranged from a low of 92 percent in 2008 to a high of 96 percent in both 2013 and 2015. Any owner will tell you a solid two percent gain in occupancy over a multi-year period has a significant impact on net operating income. Both rents and revenues continue to grow within the Omaha market. Most owners have been raising rents between 2 and 4 percent a year, and in some cases 5 percent. The general expectation is that rents and revenues will both …
Raleigh’s office market is the strongest it’s been in years, with employment and corporate investments continuing to climb throughout the Triangle region. A current lull in the delivery of new construction and the market’s increased popularity have created a space crunch for Class A office space, especially for tenants seeking large blocks. While a good amount of new construction started or continued in 2015, there’s still a gap in “move-in ready” space. Vacancy fell from 11.7 percent in the second quarter to 11.2 percent in the third quarter, causing rent growth for Class A space. Direct asking rent increased from $23.81 per square foot in the second quarter to $24.14 per square foot in the third quarter and is expected to continue to increase until delivery of new construction picks up, which will likely be mid-2016/early 2017. The market has definitely shifted in favor of the landlord, and concessions that were made during the recession have fallen off as owners no longer have to offer them to secure tenants. Desire for Class A space in the Triangle has pushed pre-leasing rental rates to a historic high north of $33 per square foot — and they are likely go higher before …
The commercial real estate market in West Michigan was quite active in 2015 across all property sectors, including one massive data center deal that is expected to spur billions of dollars in investment. Both new development and transactions involving existing facilities drove deal volume in 2015. Consequently, vacancy rates dropped while leasing rates generally rose. We expect a high level of commercial real estate activity this year as well. A lack of inventory for existing product will continue to drive new development in 2016. Industrial Strength The industrial market, in particular, has experienced a shortage of quality product to satisfy the demands of distribution companies from across the area. The greater Grand Rapids industrial market consists of approximately 115 million square feet. At the end of 2015, the vacancy rate was 4.1 percent. This marks a significant improvement compared with the depths of the Great Recession when the vacancy rate approached 10 percent. For the first time in years, we are seeing speculative development across all sizes of industrial properties. Lease rates for these speculative buildings are significantly higher than what we have experienced in the recent past due to the relatively high cost of construction. The good news for …
A rebounding economy and robust population growth are driving strong fundamentals across all segments of Raleigh-Durham’s commercial real estate industry. The region added 30,105 jobs during the 12 months ending September 2015, a growth rate of 3.1 percent. Users of all product types are facing rising occupancy costs and fierce competition for quality space. The Raleigh-Durham industrial market experienced positive net absorption of 721,185 square feet through the first three quarters of 2015, marking the sector’s fifth consecutive year of expansion. Increased tenant demand, combined with a lack of new construction, has driven vacancy back to pre-recession levels. Overall vacancy for warehouse and flex space ended the third quarter at 7.5 percent, down by 130 basis points year-over-year. Warehouse vacancy fell by 160 basis points to 6 percent during the same period and is down from a cyclical high of 10.2 percent. Flex vacancy ended the third quarter at 11 percent, down by 60 basis points year-over-year and from a cyclical high of 16.5 percent. Leasing activity has been broad based, driven primarily by organic growth in the region’s existing tenant base. Among the industries fueling the largest transactions are third-party logistics, e-commerce, manufacturing and housing and construction. Finally back …
It is difficult to find one aspect of the Omaha industrial market to highlight when recapping 2015. Quite frankly, about every single facet of the market improved last year: sale prices ticked up, land prices rose, absorption was positive, the vacancy rate was low, asking rental rates climbed, and there was plenty of new construction. There are no signs of this momentum slowing. What is even more telling is the steady trend in the same direction — the market has shown signs of improvement each of the last five years. There have not been one or two transactions skewing the metric. Sales prices of existing industrial property averaged $56 per square foot in 2015, and over 2 million square feet of inventory was sold. This is quite a jump over the average of $47 per square foot in 2014. We believe this uptick in sales prices is due to a number of factors, but most notably a combination of high demand, low inventory of platted industrial lots and high construction costs. Users have been forced to make a choice — build new product or rehab existing buildings. This dilemma has created a bit of an odd and possibly concerning scenario: …
The Jacksonville multifamily market continues to enjoy strong fundamentals at levels not seen since before the recession. In fact, the last 18 to 24 months have seen a major record-setting environment. Jacksonville saw new records being set across the board from all asset classes in all submarkets. Class A and value-add assets continue to see cap rate compression and consequently we have new benchmarks for highest price per unit and price per square foot. In 2014, Jacksonville reached nearly $800 million in sales — accounting for more than 12,000 units (includes transactions exceeding $1 million). Based on the year-to-date transactional volume — $735 million with multiple large deals set to close by the end of the year — it’s safe to say that we will exceed last year’s amount. This is the highest sales volume for multifamily in Jacksonville in the last decade. The apartment market has experienced a steady improvement in fundamentals during the past 12 to 15 months. Effective rent increased 2.6 percent from $905 in the first quarter to $928 in the second quarter, which resulted in an annual growth rate of 5 percent. According to CBRE Econometric Advisors’ (CBRE EA) second quarter report, the forecast for …
Mexico is what drives El Paso. Mexico is the dog and El Paso is the tail. When the dog is happy the tail gets to wag, and we’re wagging pretty hard right now. The El Paso industrial market hasn’t been this strong since at least 1990. Juarez, Chihuahua, El Paso’s Mexican counterpart directly across the border, posted a third consecutive year of positive industrial absorption in 2015. Build-to-suit development activity is at a level not seen in five years. As a direct result, El Paso’s industrial vacancy rate dipped below 9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, the strongest tenancy performance in nearly a decade, according to Cushman & Wakefield | PIRES International. All the leasing activity we’ve been seeing has been chewing into the city’s vacancy rate. El Paso’s Class A vacancy rate is now below 2 percent. For example, in February, Los Angeles-based BH Properties leased a 409,000-square-foot industrial space located at 9600 Pan American Drive between Interstate 10 and the Rio Grande to a subsidiary of Sweden-based Electrolux Group. Electrolux Group chose the location because it is near the Zaragoza Bridge, El Paso’s far-east port of entry, providing convenient access to the company’s plant across the …