BOSTON—Paced by a robust warehouse market, the industrial real estate market in Greater Boston has absorbed more than 2 million square feet of space in the past year. The region's industrial market posted its fifth straight quarter of positive absorption in the third quarter.

According to the third quarter report on the industrial market in Greater Boston by Transwestern, the warehouse market has now recorded 13 straight quarters of positive absorption totaling 5 million square feet during that period, which reduced the sector's vacancy rate from 19.8% to 11.4% at the end of the third quarter of this year. The 11.4% ties the lowest vacancy rate on record, last set in 2001.

Asking rents for warehouse space in Greater Boston rose to $5.78-per-square-foot, the highest level since 2008. The warehouse market benefitted from several large lease renewals, including ASD Lighting's 98,000-square-foot deal in Norwood and LagasseSweet's renewal of 159,000 square feet in Mansfield. Another large transaction in the third quarter was Wayfair's 103,000-square-foot lease in Westborough.

"The amount of options out there have declined and have pushed the rates up and are driving a few projects to be developed in the future," says Transwestern northeast research director Chase Bourdelaise. "Activity remains steady."

He adds that the industrial market overall is benefitting from the strong Massachusetts' economy. "The industrial market has greatly benefited from the strength of the overall Massachusetts economy, which has been outperforming the national average for the past few years," Bourdelaise says. "Since 2012, Massachusetts has had a consistently declining unemployment rate, steadying at 4.6% to 4.7% the past two quarters, helping to solidify the industrial sectors."

Bourdelaise notes in his report that in the past 12 months there were 4,000 industrial jobs created in Greater Boston in response to the regions increased manufacturing and sales demand.

Overall, the industrial vacancy rate in Greater Boston was at 11.3% at the end of the third quarter and rents were at $6.30-per-square-foot, fueled by the region's fifth straight quarter of positive absorption (105,000 square feet).

While there were no new project deliveries in the third quarter of this year, in the pipeline is the 450,000-square-foot 3 Distribution Center Circle in Littleton for catalog company Potpourri Group. He says there are a number of new industrial projects in the pipeline.

"The demand is there (for new construction) especially for quality, high-bay distribution warehouse space," Bourdelaise notes. Vacancies will continue to trend lower until quality warehouse space comes online, he adds.

The other two industrial sectors—flex and manufacturing— suffered negative absorption in the third quarter. The third quarter flex vacancy rate rose 0.5 percentage points to 15.3%. Absorption was negative for only the second time in the last 15 quarters. In the last 15 quarters, approximately 1.7 million square feet of flex space has been absorbed, according to the report. Asking rents for flex space rose to $8.69-per-square-foot.

The manufacturing sector saw its vacancy rate rise slightly to 11% due in large part to the 99,000 square feet of negative absorption in the third quarter. Asking rents in the region rose to $7.66-per-square-foot. The tightest market by far is the Route 128 South sector, which saw its vacancy rate fall 3.5 percentage points to its lowest rate on record at 2.6%.