Rexford Industrial Adds 2M SF in Q3
By Greg Cornfield October 25, 2021 1:10 pm
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Rexford Industrial Realty is leading the top warehouse market in the nation after acquiring another 2.1 million square feet in the third quarter this year, and also leasing about 1.8 million square feet.
During its quarterly earnings call, the Los Angeles-based REIT said it acquired 13 properties over the three-month period, as well as 140 acres of storage sites and land for redevelopment, all for a total of $880.5 million. With occupancy nearing 99 percent, Rexford also said it collected almost 99 percent of rent through Oct. 18.
“Rental rate growth continues at elevated levels, and based on our internal portfolio metrics, market rents within our portfolio increased by 24 percent over the prior year,” Howard Schwimmer, co-CEO, said during the call. “This significant increase from recent quarters reflects an acceleration in demand and a lack of availability within our supply-constrained infill markets.”
Rexford, which has invested $1.3 billion in acquisitions so far this year, claims to be the third-largest industrial REIT in America. The firm ended the third quarter with $1.1 billion in liquidity and $1.4 billion of outstanding debt, the latest of which isn’t set to mature until 2023.
The pandemic, persistent global supply chain disruptions, and with rapidly growing e-commerce sales have seriously accelerated demand for space in Southern California. In L.A., asking lease rates climbed to another all-time high, while vacancy dipped to 1.4 percent in the third quarter.
“Market rent growth continues at unprecedented levels and all signs point toward continued strength,” Michael Frankel, co-CEO, said. “In fact, a range of market dynamics indicate that we are still in the early stages of several long-term trends driving market rent and value growth into the future. … The extreme scarcity of available product, and the inability to increase supply to resolve the long-term supply-demand imbalance, sets the stage for the current acceleration in market rent growth.”
Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.
