First and foremost, Colliers would like to extend our best wishes to all in this challenging time. We hope that everyone is staying safe and share a tremendous amount of gratitude for all the essential service workers, including but not limited to truck drivers transporting essential goods, building operators keeping properties operational, and healthcare workers on the frontlines. Although this quarter’s industrial market statistics do not show any significant impacts of COVID-19, based on economic projections the Greater Vancouver Area (GVA) industrial market will not remain unscathed.
- The fundamentals of the GVA industrial real estate market have been very strong leading into the COVID-19 situation. Vacancy is hovering near record lows - this is the twelfth consecutive quarter where the GVA’s industrial vacancy rate has been below 2.0%.
- Weighted average asking net rental rates for the GVA reached an all time high of $13.11 per square foot in Q1 2020.
- The statistics reflect the entire quarter and there is a lag between real estate markets and economic impacts - as the COVID-19 situation is still in early stages and very dynamic, we at Colliers are monitoring the market very closely.
