Boston Surpasses Manhattan As Most Liquid CRE Market
The city’s share of institutional investor volume remained stable throughout the pandemic.
Boston has outpaced Manhattan as the most liquid CRE market in the US, with investment activity and the city’s share of institutional investor volume remaining stable throughout the pandemic.
New data from Real Capital Analytics shows that Boston’s component of unique, active buyers has declined only slightly over the past four quarters, while Manhattan’s has steadily fallen since the end of 2019.
Meanwhile, Manhattan’s score for investment volume declined by 4%, while the borough’s share of institutional investor volume also dipped steadily since the beginning of 2019. Boston’s share has “dipped marginally,” according to RCA.
Boston has enjoyed considerable growth throughout the pandemic: Newmark recently ranked the city as one of its top five industrial markets, and the city led office sales volume in 2020. Boston is topping the life science office market as well, and posted the largest lab transactions nationwide last quarter, accounting for 24% of all sales volume. The market has shown resilience in apartment rents as well, despite being home to a robust WFH workforce: true new lease rent growth measured a very solid 8.2%, the best number among coastal markets, and the city was also the only coastal metro to outperform the US average on year-over-year change in retention in May.