The Inland Empire Industrial Real Estate Collapse—A Tenants’ Market in the Making

Hughes Marino | Market Reports
May 15, 2025

If you are a business owner or executive team member operating an industrial distribution or manufacturing company in the Inland Empire, you’re probably still picking off the scar tissue from the run-up of industrial rents from 2020 through 2022. The outbreak of Covid in second quarter of 2020 created a run on industrial real estate in the fall of 2020. This was caused by consumers going online to shop and the ports flooding with inbound consumer products that needed to be pumped out of our Southern California warehouses. Pre-Covid, industrial availability rate in the Inland Empire was a healthy 7%. In less than a year and a half, availability rates had gone down to a historic low below 4%, rental rates increased 50% to 90% depending which submarket you’re in, and competition for large blocks of space forced many tenants to sign 7 to 10 year leases where companies were conventionally signing five-year terms.

Capital is Tight and Strategy Matters More Than Ever

Owen Rice, Riley Hillis | HM Blog
May 13, 2025

As a firm that specializes in representing tenants and owner/users of commercial real estate, we spend every day protecting the interests of companies. That singular focus gives us a real edge, especially in moments like this when the market is shifting quickly.