Avison Young releases Industrial Markets Reports, businesses leaning to owning instead of leasing

Avison Young has released Lethbridge’s Industrial Markets reports, and the findings show that companies have moved to owning their property instead of leasing.  One of the biggest contributors to this trend are construction costs.

“In the last two years at least in our Lethbridge industrial market where we were literally 50/50 percent landlord occupied and tenant occupied properties, and now we see a 53 per cent in favour of owner occupied sites so, that shift is, that’s like 350 thousand square feet in our market,” said Josh Marti, Senior Associate with Avison Young Lethbridge.

Doug Mereska, Managing Director with Avison Young Lethbridge says the vacancy rate in the city is quite low.

“The vacancy rate is actually at 3.39 per cent which is really historically low. Normally investors or users would consider a balanced market to be at around five per cent, right now again like I said we are at 3.39 per cent. In 2020 we tracked it 4.4 per cent.”

The vacancy rate in surrounding areas like Calgary and Edmonton are similar to Lethbridge with Calgary sitting at 3.3 per cent.