Metro Vancouver Industrial Market Report - Q4 2020
It is difficult to overstate how challenging the Metro Vancouver industrial market is for users. Any desirable listing, or even semi-desirable listing is getting multiple inquires, on a near continuous basis. The ratio feels like for every square foot available, there is currently five feet of demand. A recent Cresa survey shows Vancouver has the lowest vacancy rate of any major (200+ million SF) market in North America, slightly below Toronto and Montreal. Vancouver finished the year at 1.5%, and Toronto and Montreal at 1.6%. Again, rents moved higher registering $15.08 per square foot, up from $14.60 in Q3, and $14.35 at the end of 2019. Lower vacancy and higher rents were despite 3,963,141 SF completed during the year, the largest amount of new construction since 2009. 2021 looks set to be another challenging year for occupiers, and possibly one that establishes more records.