Houston industrial market sees positive absorption and vacancy fall

The Houston metro saw significantly less absorption in the industrial sector over the first quarter of 2021 with 3.3 million square feet of space takeup, compared with nearly 8 million square feet during the fourth quarter of 2020, reported Transwestern.

This brought the trailing four-quarter absorption total to 17.6 million square feet. While pre-leased deliveries drove absorption in the second half of 2020 and brought the figure to record highs, the first quarter saw far less deliveries and more new leases take place. As a result of solid absorption and less product delivering to the market, direct vacancy fell 30 basis points over the quarter to 7.7 percent, bringing the year-over-year increase to 30 bps. However, 17 new projects broke ground over the quarter, bringing the construction pipeline to 14.2 million square feet compared with only 9.2 million square feet in the fourth quarter of 2020. The pre-leased percentage is currently 45.3 percent and, as a result, Transwest