Investing in a Commercial Warehouse for Sale
As a commercial real estate investor, you may be seeking out the next opportunity right now, or just keeping your options open for future investments. New investment opportunities offer a great chance for you to diversify and grow your portfolio, or simply a chance to trade out a lower performing property for something that will bring you more value in the long run. Whether you currently have a vast array of property types or you’ve focused on one primary type like office buildings, you may be wondering about other ways to increase your investments — and your income. One type of commercial property that can help you grow your portfolio is commercial warehouses for sale.
Commercial warehouses come in all sizes, and they can be used for small, local businesses selling items online or for large, multi-state or multi-national companies with huge ecommerce and sales success. They are found across the country in order to serve their customers, who range from businesses to consumers to even a single company storing items until they are needed. No matter the size of the warehouse, there are a few key benefits investors have found when investing in this type of commercial real estate property. Let’s dive a little deeper into investing into the warehouse property type.
Why Invest in Commercial Warehouses
Investing in commercial warehouse properties for sale often makes sense for people. These leases tend to be much longer term, so you won’t have to constantly seek out a new tenant. With options for a longer lease, commercial warehouses can be a great property for triple net leases, where you can pass off many of the maintenance and tax costs to the tenant. You’ll see a higher return on this property type in most cases, as well. While commercial warehouses may have a higher entry point, most investors make their money back relatively quickly with this high value opportunity zone real estate.
Right now, we are still in the post-pandemic market. During the past 15+ months, ecommerce boomed, which means that there has been a great demand for commercial warehouses for sale across the country. People got used to online shopping and have shifted much of their shopping habits away from brick and mortar stores. This trend of online shopping and businesses needing warehouse space is not going away any time soon. That makes this a great time to invest in commercial warehouses to grow your commercial real estate portfolio.
3 Pros of Commercial Warehouses For Sale
Because commercial warehouses are in high demand, both from businesses and from their customers who are continuing to shop online necessitating more warehouse space for processing orders, these three advantages can be found with this type of commercial real estate:
- Higher return on investment
- Long-term leases
- Lower maintenance needs and costs
3 Cons of Commercial Warehouses
Now, as with anything, there are cons to investment opportunities. So you have the best information going into any investment, you should know these three challenges associated with investing in a commercial warehouse:
- Higher entry costs
- Longer timeframe for finding new tenants
- Technological advancement may outpace the space
Top Tips to Finding the Best Commercial Warehouse Opportunities
When you’re looking for the right commercial warehouse to invest in, there are a few key things to keep in mind. Location is very important to these types of businesses, but often in a different way than other properties you may currently own. Here are four elements of the location to understand when seeking out a commercial warehouse space to invest in.
Location: Distribution centers and warehouses are often located near large population centers. This means there will be better access to more trucks for cross-country delivery. But a large population area doesn’t necessarily mean a big city, which would have more traffic and increased costs. You can find warehouses properties for sale in every state, and in most cities too. In most cases no matter where the warehouse is located, investors are able to plan for reliable monthly income with few landlord responsibilities, especially when tenants and landlords agree to a NNN lease.
Space: With a commercial warehouse, there needs to be plenty of space for delivery of product. The business relies on receiving products, as well as processing orders and distributing products. This means they will need to have space for trucks to come and go and unload or load materials. Commercial warehouses are often best situated near transportation, like highways or interstates, as well as airports or ports (if located near oceans and large rivers used for transportation). Because the costs of bringing in materials and shipping them out is usually more than half of the expenses these businesses see, location really matters for warehouses.
Storage: Aside from needing space for loading and unloading, commercial warehouses can be used for other things than ecommerce. The changing supply chains now mean more businesses have a need for extra storage or manufacturing space. Some businesses or product types need climate-controlled commercial warehouse space, and across the country the industry has seen a demand for cold storage during vaccine distribution. Storage for products, manufacturing, or other needs as supply chains, businesses, and offices change is continuing to grow.
Height: A unique element to commercial warehouses is the need to understand the importance of height (floor to ceiling space inside the building). The property’s square footage only tells part of its storage capacity, in floor space. But with height, this gives investors and tenants a better idea of the unobstructed space within the building, representing the stacking potential of warehouse contents like crates and boxes.
Work with a Pro to Find the Right Commercial Real Estate for Sale
When you partner with a commercial real estate broker who has your goals in mind, you are better equipped to find the right listings and properties to grow your portfolio. At Sands Investment Group, our brokers across the country work with you to identify your goals, define success on your terms, and find the properties that fit your needs including industrial properties, office spaces and a variety of commercial properties. If you’re ready to discuss adding a commercial warehouse to your portfolio in the post-pandemic market, contact the broker team today by calling 844.4.SIG.NNN or sending an email.
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