A report from commercial real estate firm CBRE has revealed that the availability of US industrial real estate has been in decline for 25 consecutive quarters because of increasing ecommerce-based demand for warehouse space. CBRE chief economist for the Americas Jeffrey Havsy estimates that such demand will result in lease rate increases and the development of the same amount of industrial space in the 57 major US markets in 2016 as 2015. At 14 million square metres, that figure pales in comparison to the ten-year high of 20 million square metres in 2006.

CBRE data indicates that in the first quarter 2016, industrial availability fell to 8.8%. Of the 57 major US markets CBRE tracks, 37 registered declines in their availability rate in the second quarter, up slightly from the first quarter’s 35.

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