Middle market net lease investment sales have a reason to hope that transactions will start to pick up: Listings are the highest since October in 2022 at 5,564 properties, according to a Northmarq report by Chris Lomuto. That included 1,070 listings added, versus 900 removed. That was about a 3% increase and three out of the last four months saw new inventory highs.

But the jump in inventory isn't surprising because "asking caps seem to have hit a ceiling," according to the report. Caps were up about 75 basis points and have been roughly stuck at about 6% for the last four months, which is about where they stood at the end of 2020. "Ironically, that is still pricier than they were pre-pandemic." 

The average closing cap was "up by 87 bps relative to peak pricing last summer," Lomuto wrote. "To be fair, that number may evolve as more of the data rolls in for August and September, but 87 bps would mark a reversion back to the mean, of around 6.2 bps per month." According to the data, closing caps look as though they might continue their ascent absent a sudden change in market activity as the last time they were this high was in April 2021. In January 2021, closing caps were at close to 6.7%.