San Diego will be one of the 10 hot spots in the nation in 2019 for commercial real estate investment, according to a company that provides environmental reports on commercial real estate property.
Environmental Data Resources (EDR) ranked San Diego as the third fastest-growing market for environmental due diligence in the nation, with a 15 percent growth in commercial property assessments in 2018.
San Francisco topped EDR’s list of hot spots with a growth rate of 19 percent with Orlando, Florida in second place at 16 percent.
The company provides risk assessments on properties to banks and other financial institutions as part of their due diligence in making commercial real estate loans, said Dianne Crocker, principal analyst for EDR.
The requests for environmental assessments have proven to be early indicators on where investors are looking, Crocker said.
EDR predicted what has become a commercial real estate boom in St. Louis, Missouri, which she said attracted about $1 billion in investments in 2018.
In the past, Boston, New York and Los Angeles have led the nation in commercial real estate investment.
“There’s more interest kind of migrating away from those big gateway markets to the smaller ones,” Crocker said, attributing the change to rapidly rising prices.
Investors “are tired of competing aggressively for price,” Crocker said.
San Diego is especially attractive because prices are relatively low, the region is known for its high quality of life, and it has a broad pool of talented workers.
“It’s becoming a really attractive market for tech talent and there’s a lower cost of living compared to other tech markets,” Crocker said. “A lot of the story in commercial real estate investing now is where the tech jobs are going.”
