Industrial Trends
- The NJ industrial market fundamentals remained strong as demand outpaced construction deliveries and its availabilities reducing its vacancy rate to a historic low of 4.6% which is lower than 160 BPS since a year ago.
- Rental rates increased its average to $6.68 from $6.50 a quarter ago (a 45 BPS increase from a year ago) leaving many tenants coming into the market with sticker shock.
- Developers are trying to keep pace with the demand for new space. The Limited Big Box availabilities
- Asking rents climbed higher in the first quarter
- Over 2MSF deliveries and 10MSF currently under construction the majority of which is already preleased
- Target inked a 720ksf deal at Bridge’s Perth Amboy High Street location; the state’s largest tenant Amazon has already absorbed close to 11 MSF, not including its 1MSF lease at Matrix’s Global Logistics Park in Staten Island
Retail Trends
- With all the discussions pertaining to ecommerce absorbing industrial space and taking away from the retail market, the vacancy rate, at the momentum, is steady at 6.1%
Office Trends
- Tenant demand to transit oriented office regions continued to drive leasing velocity thus far along with the strong demand from the business and pharmaceutical fields. These submarkets such as the Hudson waterfront and the Short Hills/Summit areas continued to outpace the rest of the market.
Economic Trends
- Consumer confidence remains healthy
- 8.3% of all retail sales at year end are from e-commerce sales
- According to the US Census Bureau, New Jersey’s unemployment rate is 4.2% with its population of 8.95M
- CPI was up .4 for the quarter while the US Import Price Index was up 1
