David Johnson on the State of Industrial Real Estate
David Johnson is the Managing Broker for NAI G2 Commercial Real Estate. David’s primary focus and expertise are industrial and office property. Together with his partner Jack Hayes, he has sold or leased over 20 million square feet of space in the last 10 years and is recognized as one of this region’s leaders in commercial real estate.
In the West Georgia / East Alabama market, we have seen incredible growth in the Industrial sector. Rents have increased annualized by 12.5% for 2022, compared to a little over 7% the previous 3 years.
Following a hiatus in new development, there is now 25,000 SF of industrial space currently under development – but this represents only a fraction in existing and future inventory for this market sector.
Vacancy rates have been in line with a 10 year average up to the 3rd quarter of 2022 but has moved up over the last 4 quarters. Our market is sitting at a 4.5% vacancy rate, but it is more likely much lower than that. We like to joke that the industrial market is like musical chairs – when one person gets up, someone immediately sits right back down.
One of our properties that reflects all these trends is the Snyders-Lance (former Toms Foods) portfolio. Consisting of over 500,000 SF of manufacturing industrial across 6 buildings, we originally thought is would take the better part of a year to sale/lease. But in a matter of weeks, we had 4 of the buildings under contract.
To learn more about the industrial market, be sure to watch the full video! Click here to watch the video.
Having an agent who is knowledgeable about all the intricoes of commercial real estate is key to a successful transaction.
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