Industrial Real Estate - Limited Resources

[Account Closed]

I am extremely interested in investing in commercial industrial real estate but from the research that I have done there are very limited resources regarding investing in industrial real estate and learning more about such. Do you guys have any suggestions on where to go to learn more about industrial? I am very familiar with residential both single family and multi family, I feel like that is most all of what the focus is on in the real estate investment community and education regarding real estate investment.

Thank you!

[Taylor Hazard]

Tristin glad to hear your interested in industrial RE. Your best bet is going to be the industrial RE community as a whole, same as if you wanted to get started in single family, find the trade groups (like NAIOP) and others and attend networking events. Seek out industrial brokers and buy them coffee / lunch in to pick their brains. I would also call every major brokerage house and request their market report for industrial, I just sent C&W's in a DM. 

You can also start looking on Loopnet for industrial properties for sale or lease and start driving the market, possibly the single most important thing you can do is become an expert on the market: where are the primary industrial submarkets in and around Portland? What type of product is being built in each submarket (e.g. distrubitution vs. flex vs. manufacturing etc.)? How much are spaces renting for in each product type in each submarket? Ultimately your success of failure will depend on your depth and breadth of knowledge and the "team" you put together (RE attorney, broker, contractor etc.).

While I am an industrial broker in Seattle I know a fair amount about the Portland market and I can tell you its going to be an uphill battle. Industrial RE has been experiencing a resurgence over the last 10 years and has become the darling of the investment community; once the red headed step child of the commercial world industrial has become one of the favorite asset classes of the institutional and local investor alike and unfortunately Portland is in the midst of the "hottest" industrial RE market on record. Expect sticker shock.

Good luck, if you get to the point where your ready to start looking at product I would be happy to recommend one of my colleagues in our Portland office.