Despite national and global challenges to the economy, the U.S. industrial market has remained strong throughout 2022. And April was no exception, according to the latest research from CommercialEdge.
According to CommercialEdge’s May National Industrial Report, rents for the national industrial market reached $6.47 a square foot in April, a jump of 4.4% from a year ago. The 12-month rolling average for new industrial leases was an even more impressive $7.48 a square foot.
In the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, the average industrial rent hit $6.03 a square foot in April. That’s up 3.5% from a year earlier.
And the national industrial vacncy rate? That remained low, too, at 5% in April. That is 120 basis points lower than in January of 2021.
In the Midwest, both Indianapolis and Columbus featured tight industrial markets. CommercialEdge said that the industrial vacancy rate in Indianapolis was 2.1% at the end of April, while it stood at 2.3% in Columbus.
New construction remains in demand, too. CommercialEdge reported that the industrial construction pipeline stood at 640.1 million square feet across the country as of the end of April. That accounts for 3.7% of the existing U.S. industrial stock. An additional 650 million square feet of industrial space were in the planning stages in April, equal to 4% of the country’s existing industrial stock.
Industrial sales totaled nearly $19 billion for 2022 as of the end of April. At the same time, interest from investors has pushed industrial prices to record highs throughout the United States, with the national average sale price for this commercial sector hitting $135 a square foot in April, 20% higher than 2021’s average.
Industrial sales came in at high numbers in several Midwest markets. Chicago led the way in the region, notching more than $1.35 billion in industrial sales in 2022 as of the end of April. In Nashville, that figure was $495 million, while in Columbus it was $314 million and in Minneapolis-St. Paul $313 million.
