A Quiet Surge in Demand: Industrial Real Estate in Orange County, Inland Empire & Los Angeles

Tucker Hughes | Market Reports
April 5, 2021

It is widely accepted that the commercial real estate market, as a whole, has taken a hit during Covid-19. Restaurants and brick-and-mortar shops have faced the worst of it as retail properties everywhere shut down. Office buildings have not fared much better as most companies sent their employees to work from home. The drop in demand for those two property types has dominated headlines across the country but, all the while, a quiet surge in demand has occurred in the industrial real estate market. Unlike other asset classes in the greater Los Angeles region, the industrial real estate market has been incredibly resilient through the Covid-19 pandemic. Combining Orange County, Inland Empire and Los Angeles, we see that together an already-low vacancy rate of 3.4% in Q1 2020 only shrunk further to an even tighter 3.1% today. Essential businesses in e-commerce, manufacturing, and biotech have all seen their demand–and need for space–soar as consumers and businesses stay at home throughout the pandemic. For these industries there is no possibility of sending their operations off-site, and the result of this increased demand is a tightening market met with an increase in development of new properties where available land exists.

2020 in Review–A Warm-Up of Things to Come for Los Angeles Commercial Real Estate?

Tucker Hughes | Market Reports
March 3, 2021

Anyone reading this understands that 2020 was one of the most volatile and difficult years in our lifetime. With that, the commercial real estate market and industry has become one of the most affected industries by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, 2020 did not affect all commercial real estate categories in the same way. The industrial sector of the economy has remained strong and vibrant, as have e-commerce-based companies. This has created unprecedented demand for industrial and manufacturing space around the country, and many categories of industrial space, particularly distribution space, have actually seen vacancy rates decline and rental rates increase. Similarly, the biotech industry set records for capital formation during the pandemic, creating unforeseen and unprecedented demand in all of the major biotech markets across the country, where we currently see not only supply shortages, but upward pressure on rents in every market from Boston, to San Diego, to the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.