The first quarter of 2025 marked the Detroit industrial market’s weakest three-month period for net absorption since 2010, according to the latest research from Marcus & Millichap.
According to Marcus & Millichap’s 2025 Industrial Investment Outlook, the industrial vacancy rate in the Detroit market rose to 4.7% as of the end of the first quarter of this year. Marcus & Millichap, though, predicts that this vacancy rate won’t rise higher than this throughout the remainder of 2025.
The Detroit industrial market still boasts one of the lowest vacancy rates in the country, even with the slight uptick it’s seen, Marcus & Millichap said.
Part of the reason? The pace of new industrial deliveries has slowed significantly. Marcus & Millichap reported that the total industrial inventory in the Detroit metropolitan area will expand by just 0.5% in 2025. That figure is about half of this area’s trailing 10-year average and ranks among the lowest of major U.S. markets.
Thanks in part to this lack of supply, the average asking rent for industrial space in the Detroit market is projected to reach $7.74 a square foot in 2025, according to Marcus & Millichap. If this holds, industrial rent growth here will have risen three times faster than the national rate.
