At the end of the second quarter of 2022, the downward adjustment trend in the Mexican industrial markets has been further marked, with the national average closing at 2.6% when a year ago it stood at 4.7%.

So far in 2022 it has been a very active year in terms of national gross demand, which already exceeds 3.6 million square meters of industrial buildings, an amount 21% higher than that registered in the same period last year. If we analyze the net demand, the annual increase is even greater, 41% above that registered in 2Q 2021.

Although the development in each market has particular characteristics, 8 of the 15 industrial markets that Solili monitors maintain vacancies below 2% at the end of 2Q 2022, when until a year ago, at 2Q 2021, only Tijuana registered 1.4% and who more than Close behind was Guadalajara with a 2.5% vacancy.

If we analyze in detail the national vacancy, there are 5 markets that concentrate the largest amounts, with Mexico City, Guanajuato, Monterrey, Querétaro and  San Luis Potosí being the markets that concentrate 72% of the 2.2 million square meters vacant nationwide.

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At the other extreme, the lowest vacancies, below 1%, are found in Tecate, Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez with 0.3%, 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively. Tecate practically does not present vacant spaces and has been the entity that consumed its available industrial buildings with the greatest speed since in only one year it decreased by 5.2 percentage points.

As we can see, these entities on the border have received strong pressure from an even scarcer vacancy in American territory, where the preference for the relocation of new production processes, together with the expansion of companies that were already operating in Mexican territory, have triggered the search of industrial spaces, increasing competition and raising rental prices.

Among the group of entities whose vacancies are between 1 and 2% we find Aguascalientes, Guadalajara, Mexicali, Reynosa and Puebla. Once again, Mexicali and Reynosa, located on the northern border, closed the quarter with 1.7% and 1.6%, respectively, although Mexicali has been one of the few markets nationwide to register an annual adjustment of 50 cents on the dollar in its rental price.

We must remember that these percentages are the average that we find in the markets, so it is important to be alert to the relative behavior that occurs in each of the brokers that make up the markets. For example, in Mexico City the vacancy average is 2.7%, similar to that registered in Tepotzotlán, while Tultitlan registers 1.1% and Cuautitlán 2%.

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The phenomenon of such low vacancies, even in the face of a significant volume of new construction, is due to the fact that a large part of what is progressing in buildings corresponds to custom-made projects, mainly the large logistics surfaces in central and border markets, as well as the surfaces of data centers that are registered in the shoal.

Although speculative investment has also grown in the main Mexican markets, it is still alert to the phenomenon of inflation, which, if not attended to with special care, could undermine the profitability of the investment.

We have also monitored operations within the portfolios of investment trusts that seek to optimize their portfolios, exiting properties that are not aligned with their medium and long-term objectives and including the development of new industrial facilities, as is the case of Prologis, which recently announced the construction of three new industrial parks in the State of Mexico.