Commercial property asset prices continued to rise in June, led by the apartment sector, Real Capital Analytics reports.
The RCA National All-Property Index grew 9.8% in June compared with a year ago, the fastest rate since 2015, and was up 0.8% from May.
Apartment price growth, which slowed to as low as 6.9% year-over-year during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, surged to 12% in June 2021.
Offices are enjoying price increases as well, despite uncertainty over the sector's future demand, RCA reports. The office sector index rose 6% in June compared to a year ago, its best performance since 2018.
Suburban office prices accounted for the entire increase, posting a 7.7% annual growth rate in June. Central business district office prices again declined, dropping 2.4% year-over-year.
The industrial sector, the darling of the pandemic, isn't slowing down. In June, prices in the sector were up 9.8% year-over-year. That is within the range (9% to 10%) that the rate has recorded almost every month since the beginning of the pandemic.
Even retail property prices continue to rise, according to RCA, up 3.2% year-over-year in June, an improvement compared with most of 2020 but still below the national rate of inflation for now.
There were some markets that experienced a drop in CRE prices in June, though they were more than offset by rising prices in most other places. The outer boroughs of New York City suffered a drop of more than 10% in commercial prices year-over-year, and apartment prices there were down nearly 20%.
At the other end of the spectrum, commercial prices shot up by more than 10% each in Tampa, Florida, and the Inland Empire of California, and they increased by more than 20% in Seattle. In Phoenix, the price of apartment assets shot up nearly 30% compared with June 2020, and Jacksonville, Florida; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; Atlanta; and San Diego all saw prices rise more than 10% year-over-year.
On the whole, RCA reports, U.S. commercial property prices didn't collapse because of the pandemic, with price growth merely slowing down temporarily. In Q2 2021, the company's national all-property index stands at a record high, fully 120% higher than the nadir experienced immediately after the Great Financial Crisis.
