The New Jersey industrial real estate market continued to overcome the pandemic in the third quarter, according to a new report from Cushman & Wakefield.
The real estate firm said asking rents reached a historic high at $9.39 per square foot in Q3, while vacancies stayed steady at 3%. It noted e-commerce and other logistics firms dominated demand, and the construction pipeline is in good shape, which is vital because demand for industrial space is outweighing supply.
The quarter saw more than 3.5 million square feet of positive absorption, bringing the year-to-date total to 6.5 million square feet. That trails the year-ago total of 7.2 million square feet, however. New leasing also fell short of the 2019 mark, at 17.3 million square feet YTD, compared with 19.4 million square feet in Q3 2019.
Those figures reflect the scarcity of inventory, C&W said.
“It’s important to note that the lag in YTD leasing was more due to the lack of available space than it was tenant interest in the local market,” Jason Price, director of suburban tri-state research, said in a prepared statement. “In fact, Q3 leasing activity marked the highest quarterly total this year.”
New deliveries reached 8.1 million square feet YTD, up 28.6% from the year-ago number.
“Demand for new product remains strong, as evidenced by 93.3% preleasing on 2020 deliveries,” Price said.
