With each year that passes in the current cycle, industrial real estate, along with multifamily, becomes more deeply ingrained as a darling asset class among commercial developers, lenders and investors. For all the talk about Americans being social creatures, there remains a massive contingent of the population that, when it comes to shopping, overwhelmingly prefers the convenience and relative anonymity of e-commerce. What started out as pandemic-related justifications for buying goods online as opposed to in-person has given way to a full-fledged, tacit acknowledgement of a trend that was already in place prior to February 2020. As such, demand for facilities — not just traditional, pure-play industrial spaces — that can function as e-commerce fulfillment and distribution centers continues to skyrocket. This trend is even more pronounced in markets with surging populations like those of major Texas cities. Industrial brokers are the ones who see it all. These professionals talk to tenants about acute real estate needs that are critical to serving customers without accruing exorbitant transit costs. Brokers work with developers who must build and price their spaces in accordance with their own escalating cost structures for land and construction. The deals that industrial brokers execute form the backbone …
