By Jennifer Hopkins, MBA and Olivia Czyzynski, SVN Chicago Commercial The commercial real estate (CRE) industry has traditionally been relatively stable but can be impacted by the economy with normal ups and downs based on economic fluctuations. However, when COVID-19 hit, it was unprecedented and something the world had not seen in many years. The CRE industry started preparing for the changes that came along, including business shutdowns and many employees working from home. Although it was expected that the retail market would be the hardest hit sector, it turned out that the office market ended up being significantly impacted. The overall issues and pending work-from-home approach have had a major ripple effect on office markets across the nation. The Chicagoland market was impacted particularly hard, and this included the suburban Chicago markets. Chicagoland is broken out into several main commercial hubs: the city of Chicago, the East-West Corridor, the O’Hare market, the Northwest suburbs and the North suburbs. According to CoStar, office vacancy rates increased in all these markets. In 2020, the vacancy rates ranged from 7 to 20 percent, but currently stand at 18.8 percent, 17.3 percent, 16.9 percent, 23.2 percent and 11 percent, respectively. While no market …
— By Shane Shafer, Managing Director, Northmarq — Orange County remains a highly desirable market for multifamily investors — and for good reason. It’s a flight-to-quality market with a strong employment base and continued expectations of future job growth. This drives demand for rental units and pushes rent growth and occupancy. Add to that a severe shortage of rental housing supply, more would-be homebuyers remaining renter, and Orange County’s affordability compared with other Southern California markets, and it points to a robust investor market. The employment market continues to show signs of growth and resurgence, adding 73,000 jobs in 2022. Unemployment is an extremely low 2.5 percent. Orange County is long known for its tech startups, tourism and hospitality sectors, though healthcare and bioscience are expanding here as well. For example, Washington-based health system Providence is investing $712 million in Orange County to build two new multi-specialty medical centers and a new patient care tower for Providence Mission Hospital. The centers will be in San Clemente and Rancho Mission Viejo. This strong job market gives multifamily investors confidence in their expected returns as they aggressively pursue assets when they hit the market. Central OC Leads in Rental Gains Central Orange County experienced a …
Nashville’s economy experienced some of the healthiest growth in the nation in 2022, with an annual job growth rate of 5.8 percent, exceeding the U.S. growth rate of 4.1 percent, based on data from Oxford Economics. Nashville also received high marks from the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers, ranking as the No. 1 Market to Watch in their 2023 Emerging Trends in Real Estate report. The report credited Nashville’s tremendous and sustained population growth, and its economic diversity. Referred to as a “Supernova,” Nashville grew by an average of 5 percent since 2019 — four times faster than the national rate — due to rapid net in-migration. These fundamentals have helped boost the retail market in Nashville over the last several years. Post-pandemic, market-wide retail vacancy decreased to 3.3 percent at the end of 2022, which is two percentage points less than the rate at year-end 2020, but in line with the 15-year record low mark set in 2018. While Nashville’s retail sector took a hit along with others across the nation, it continues to rebound and perform due to a rise in dense communities where developers and owners are being strategic and thoughtful in retail curation. As such, the …
— By Shane Shafer, Managing Director, Northmarq — The Inland Empire submarkets have maintained rent increases, low vacancy rates and employment growth. Plus, unlike other Southern California markets, the IE has seen a migration into the area — not out. The population of the Inland Empire region in an average year expands by about 50,000 residents. This is the fifth largest gain among the largest 50 metros, per 2021 Census numbers. A Jobs-Rich Market Gaining Momentum Local employment showed signs of growth and resurgence, adding jobs each of the past four quarters. Year-over-year total employment increased by more than 83,000 positions, which equates to a gain of more than 5 percent. Contrast this with other markets, and you can see why the Inland Empire is on most investors’ top 10 lists for buying, and why expectations are so high for the market to have continued rental growth. The logistics sector is one of the biggest and fastest growing in the United States. These jobs have consistently grown over the past 10 years, increasing by more than 10 percent. This year, Amazon inked a record-setting 4.1-million-square-foot facility in Ontario, while companies like Target, Shopify, Best Buy, AutoZone and others also made large commitments. The …
— By Shane Shafer, Managing Director, Northmarq — The Inland Empire submarkets have maintained rent increases, low vacancy rates and employment growth. Plus, unlike other Southern California markets, the IE has seen a migration into the area — not out. The population of the Inland Empire region in an average year expands by about 50,000 residents. This is the fifth largest gain among the largest 50 metros, per 2021 Census numbers. A Jobs-Rich Market Gaining Momentum Local employment showed signs of growth and resurgence, adding jobs each of the past four quarters. Year-over-year total employment increased by more than 83,000 positions, which equates to a gain of more than 5 percent. Contrast this with other markets, and you can see why the Inland Empire is on most investors’ top 10 lists for buying, and why expectations are so high for the market to have continued rental growth. The logistics sector is one of the biggest and fastest growing in the United States. These jobs have consistently grown over the past 10 years, increasing by more than 10 percent. This year, Amazon inked a record-setting 4.1-million-square-foot facility in Ontario, while companies like Target, Shopify, Best Buy, AutoZone and others also made large commitments. The …
By Kent Elliott, principal, and Chase Fryhover, director, RETS Associates While December’s national jobs report painted an optimistic picture of the employment landscape, some sources have noted that workers in commercial real estate are leaving the industry. Yet although some national brokerage firms may be trimming the fat to cut costs in light of recent economic uncertainty, this trend does not seem to apply to Texas-based commercial real estate companies. In fact, according to Estateserve, with the Texas office market booming, vacancy rates dropping and rents rising, “Texas’ commercial real estate is experiencing a resurgence.” As a national executive search firm that has served the industry for more than two decades, RETS Associates has a seasoned perspective on job markets throughout the country. Here are the trends we are noticing throughout the industry in Texas and why we believe the market is poised for ongoing strength and stability. Continued In-Migration Texas is the ninth-largest economy in the world, as well as one of the leading markets in the country in job and economic growth. The Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area in particular, the fourth-largest MSA in the country, led the country in population growth in March 2022 and in post-pandemic job …
Nashville’s industrial market continues to see strong demand going into 2023. In fact, more than 1.7 million square feet of leasing activity was recorded throughout fourth-quarter 2022, bringing the year-to-date transaction volume just shy of an impressive 8.8 million square feet. Even overall vacancy sat at 3 percent during the final quarter of 2022, and while that was a slight increase compared to the previous quarter, it still was 30 basis points below the national vacancy average. Despite a recessionary environment and uncertainty of what’s next in the commercial real estate sector, Nashville’s industrial market is uniquely positioned for the upcoming year. As Nashville’s industrial market still experiences growth, there are several macro-economic trends impacting it that are worth keeping an eye on, such as e-commerce and third-party logistics demand. Interest rates have also risen, making it very tricky to value property and cap rates due to the debt markets. This has triggered limited investment activity from buyers and sellers alike across all property types, including industrial. Industrial developers are also being more cautious as rising interest rates have increased construction costs. Many developers and investors have purchased land or have land under contract, for example, but are waiting for …
— By Rob Martensen, Senior Executive Vice President, Colliers International — There are a lot of questions being asked about the Phoenix industrial market as we turn the calendar to 2023. Having been an industrial broker in this market for 25 years, I have seen many ups and downs, which are historically driven by the residential construction market. Phoenix used to be a one-industry town…and that industry was growth. Sure, we’ve had large companies like Motorola, Avnet and Intel, but the industrial market has been mostly driven by people moving to Arizona and buying houses and household goods. Phoenix has transformed in the past five years into a thriving city that now supports many industries. The largest is advanced manufacturing. This includes semiconductors, battery manufacturing, electric vehicle manufacturing and all supporting businesses. Intel is in the process of a $20 billion expansion to their existing facility, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is under construction on a $12 billion chip making factory. TSMC recently announced it’s going to immediately start on Phase II of this factory, which will be another $28 billion spent in Phoenix. It is estimated that 160 new companies have moved to Phoenix to support these two new …
By Ken Martin, JLL The Indianapolis industrial real estate market ended 2022 nearing a record high for a single year with more than 19.6 million square feet of absorption. Much of this was recorded in Hendricks, Johnson and Hancock counties with total year-end net absorption of 7.3, 6.4 and 3.2 million square feet, respectively. These submarkets continue to offer tenants excellent access to both interstate highways to transport goods across the country, as well as strong employment bases. Developers and tenants often cite employment bases as their No. 1 criteria in selecting an optimum site. With vacancy at an all-time low of sub 5 percent for the majority of 2022, developers and owners were able to push rents as demand outstripped supply. As recently as two to three years ago, rents were consistently in the high $3’s per square foot range and now we consistently see rents in the $5 per square foot range or higher. Year-end asking rents averaged $5.54 per square foot overall and $6.48 per square foot for mid-sized warehouse space. In some markets, however, rents for warehouse space were well above the average. In the central business district, for example, asking rates for warehouse …
By Hayden Spiess First comes inflation, then come interest rate hikes. The fact that this sequence is a predictable one does not temper the discomfort of reckoning with it, and the commercial real estate industry is as familiar with this pain as any. This familiarity was made clear in the results of an exclusive survey by Northeast Real Estate Business, which was conducted via email toward the end of 2022. Two groups, one comprising brokers and the other consisting of developers, owners and managers, were asked to assess the state of commercial real estate in the region with both retro- and forward-looking perspectives. Of the brokers questioned, approximately 53 percent believed that interest rates would be the factor to affect their industry the most in 2023 (see chart). These individuals selected this option from a list that included other factors such as remote/hybrid work models, inflationary pressures and GDP/job growth, which received 26.5, 14.7 and 2.9 percent of the vote, respectively. The other two options — supply chain constraints and election results — received no votes. Developers likewise identified interest rates as the demographic, political or economic factor likely to cause the most disruption within the industry. An …