The global COVID-19 pandemic thrust industrial real estate into the spotlight as more people shopped from home, creating a seemingly insatiable demand for warehouse and logistics space to store and move the goods they ordered. As a result, rent for industrial properties increased 6.3% in 2022 to $7.03 per square foot, and the market set
A warehouse crush across the U.S. is squeezing out smaller companies as big retailers fill industrial storage sites with their growing stockpiles of inventory. Logistics and real-estate specialists say many large retailers are demanding extra room to store excess inventories, driving up costs for smaller companies and in some cases driving them out of spaces.
Industrial real estate has been the standout sector in real estate for close to a decade, and the pandemic only further entrenched its position. While other sectors of the economy ground to a virtual halt, consumers’ accelerated shift toward e-commerce made industrial one of the few assets to benefit from lockdowns and social distancing.
Any hope, faint as it might have been, that industrial supply would start to catch up with demand this year should be already dashed by now. The National Association of Realtors reported data through March 4, finding that industrial supply continues to lag demand. Namely, as of the beginning of this month, the vacancy rate