Majority in Survey See Continued Strength in Industrial CRE Sector

The third-annual survey of industrial real estate pros by National Real Estate Investor (NREI) shows people are still bullish on that segment of the market.

Nearly 30 percent of respondents said capital is more readily available now than a year ago, and 52 percent viewed it as on par with 2016.

 

Nearly 90 percent expect a rise in interest rates, though respondents were pretty evenly split on risk premium, with 44 percent expecting an increase and 46 percent expecting no change from last year.

 

More than half of investors said they plan to hold their industrial properties this year, while a third said they would be looking to buy. Just 13 percent plan to sell, NREI reported.

 

Activity in the industrial sector has been at high levels in recent years.

 

“Preliminary numbers from CoStar indicate that in 2016 $69.3 billion in industrial property changed hands. That represented a 21 percent decline compared with 2015, when $88.1 billion in deals closed,” NREI reported. “But it was still the second highest volume of deals in the sector CoStar has measured going back to 2000.”