Why You Need to Keep a Close Eye on Atlanta

Midtown Atlanta

ATLANTA—When it comes to office and industrial commercial real estate , Atlanta is on the list of cities to watch in 2016. There are two key reasons, according to a CBRE Research report. The first is positive office job growth. The second is as strong infrastructure track leading to consistent growth in logistics and supply chain presence. Combined, these factors have led Atlanta to transition from the Southeast’s city to watch into a city on the minds of national and international decision makers. “ Atlanta’s office market continues to attract investment capital, both domestic and offshore, due to the positive population and job growth metrics,” Will Yowell, vice chairman at CRE, tells GlobeSt.com. “Businesses are finding the Atlanta market offers a deep talent pool, and hence are expanding their businesses. This expansion combined with limited new construction is producing significant rent growth in the office sector, and hence very attractive risk adjusted returns. As the metro with the fourth largest decrease in industrial availability, Atlanta ranks among the top 10 leading metro for industrial investment. According to CBRE, Atlanta is following the national industrial trends: rising rents; investor interest; consecutive positive net absorption; speculative development; and increased port activity. Nation-wide, CBRE reports, the US industrial market is still a favorable investment target for institutional capital seeking strong long-term fundamentals. On the office side, Atlanta is among the top five CBD markets with the most office absorption—and the sole representative of the Southeast region in the category. Manhattan, Seattle, Chicago and Washington, DC also made the list. Atlanta’s suburban office market performed well. Atlanta was one of six US suburban office markets to obtain rent growth above 5% since 2014. CBRE reports the overall health and stability of both the office and industrial markets landed Atlanta a spot on the annual CBRE underwriting survey as a market where investors had the highest expectation. CBRE Economic Advisors expects the momentum to continue in Atlanta and throughout the South, noting the region should expect a boom in office -using job growth.