The availability rate of industrial spaces in Monterrey and its Metropolitan Area reached 5.5 percent during the first three months of the year due to vacant buildings and completed constructions, according to the firm Cushman and Wakefield (C&W). In particular, the Santa Catarina market stands out with a rate of 11.8 percent, excelling among the available submarkets in the region.
Samuel González, analyst at C&W, pointed out that this rate was situated at 5.5 percent considering only the buildings prepared for occupancy, which represents almost 743 thousand square meters available in total. He highlighted that Apodaca and Santa Catarina are the submarkets with the highest availability, with approximately 250 thousand m2 and 204 thousand m2 respectively, representing 4.31% and 11.81% of the total supply in each area.
González explained that the significant vacancy in these markets is due to investments that did not succeed for various factors, such as political issues, inflation, or increases in interest rates, which has led to a high rental cost currently. This trend is related to the oversupply generated by the boom in the construction of industrial parks under the expectation of growth due to nearshoring, where supply is growing faster than demand.
During the first quarter of the year, a slowdown in transactions was observed due to the geopolitical landscape, although Nuevo León has implemented incentives to counteract potential losses in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Regarding construction, there are currently around one million 24 thousand square meters in process, with Apodaca, Santa Catarina, and Ciénega de Flores being the main development hotspots.
In terms of space absorption, a total of 214 thousand square meters was recorded, reflecting a low but expected absorption given the current economic circumstances influenced by tariff measures from the neighboring country. Regarding rental prices, emerging submarkets such as Santa Catarina and Pesquería have experienced a slight increase with weighted average prices of 8.55 and 7.80 per square foot annually respectively.
