If you own a warehouse or industrial building and are weighing a sale, one of the first questions is whether the market is on your side. No report can answer that for one building. But the newest Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) numbers do show how much demand there is for industrial space, and which way asking rents are moving, in nine large markets and across the U.S. This post puts those numbers in one table, shows how to read them without mixing up units, and ends with what they can and cannot tell you about your own property.
The Short Answer: The Market Is Mixed
In the U.S. as a whole, industrial vacancy was 6.8% in Q3 2026, down 20 basis points from year-end 2025 and its lowest level since year-end 2024. Asking rent grew 4.0% over the year, the third quarter in a row that rent growth sped up. Net absorption, the net change in occupied space, reached 76.6 million square feet in the quarter, the most since Q1 2023. But the nine markets in the table below did not move together. Over the year, vacancy fell in Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta and Los Angeles, and rose in Chicago, Houston, the Inland Empire, Cleveland and Detroit. Asking rents rose in seven of the nine and fell in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire.
Every property is different. So the real question is how your building compares with the other space for lease or for sale in your own market.
Vacancy and Asking Rent in Nine Markets, Q3 2026
The table comes from one report, Cushman & Wakefield’s U.S. Industrial MarketBeat for Q3 2026. Its Q3 2026 figures are marked preliminary, and the report says current-quarter numbers are subject to revisions as more data comes in. Vacancy here is the overall rate: unoccupied space, sublet space included, as a percentage of total inventory. Rent is the overall weighted asking rent per square foot, on a triple-net (NNN) basis. The national report does not say whether these rents are per month or per year; they are read here as yearly because it gives Chicago the same $7.53 that Chicago’s own report states as rent per square foot per year.
| Market | Report quarter | Vacancy, Q3 2025 | Vacancy, Q3 2026 | Asking rent per sq ft per year, Q3 2025 | Asking rent per sq ft per year, Q3 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta, GA | Q3 2026 (preliminary) | 9.3% | 8.6% | $7.23 | $7.71 |
| Chicago, IL | Q3 2026 (preliminary) | 4.6% | 4.7% | $7.25 | $7.53 |
| Cleveland, OH | Q3 2026 (preliminary) | 3.7% | 4.0% | $5.59 | $5.76 |
| Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX | Q3 2026 (preliminary) | 8.8% | 7.3% | $8.14 | $9.76 |
| Detroit, MI | Q3 2026 (preliminary) | 3.5% | 3.8% | $7.22 | $7.40 |
| Houston, TX | Q3 2026 (preliminary) | 6.1% | 6.3% | $7.77 | $8.16 |
| Inland Empire, CA | Q3 2026 (preliminary) | 7.4% | 8.0% | $13.50 | $12.17 |
| Los Angeles, CA | Q3 2026 (preliminary) | 4.4% | 4.3% | $16.21 | $15.92 |
| Philadelphia, PA | Q3 2026 (preliminary) | 11.8% | 10.0% | $12.65 | $12.82 |
| United States | Q3 2026 (preliminary) | 7.0% | 6.8% | $10.00 | $10.40 |
These are one firm’s figures for one quarter. Newer quarters and other reports may differ.
What Stands Out, Market by Market
- Dallas/Fort Worth. Asking rent reached a new high of $9.76 per square foot, up 19.9% over the year, and vacancy fell to 7.3%, the lowest level since Q3 2023. The report adds a caution: it calls the strong rent growth a statistical artifact of a shortage of large, lower-rent spaces for lease compared with a year earlier, even as pricing power began returning to landlords in submarkets and building sizes where vacancy has tightened to mid-to-low single digits. The national report weights its average asking rent by the amount of space available, so when fewer large, lower-rent spaces are for lease, the average can rise even if no single rent does.
- Philadelphia. Its vacancy is the highest of the nine at 10.0%, but it fell from 11.8% a year earlier, and the national report names Philadelphia among the 14 markets where vacancy dropped by 100 basis points or more over the year. C&W’s local Q3 2026 report for the Philadelphia region gives the same 10.0% vacancy and the same $12.82 asking rent per square foot per year as the national table, and says vacancy fell 180 basis points over the year. The national figures are still marked preliminary, so they may be revised as more data comes in.
- Chicago. In the Chicago market, vacancy held at 4.7% for the fourth quarter in a row, and average asking net rent rose 3.9% over the year to $7.53 per square foot. The report also says 8.9 million square feet was leased but unoccupied and counted toward vacancy; without that space, vacancy would be 4.0%.
- Houston. Net absorption was 7.3 million square feet in Q3 2026, the strongest quarter since Q2 2022, and vacancy held at 6.3% from the quarter before.
- Los Angeles. Vacancy rose 30 basis points over the quarter to 4.3%, still 10 basis points below a year earlier. Average asking rent rose over the quarter for the first time since Q2 2023, to $1.33 per square foot per month.
- Inland Empire. Vacancy fell to 8.0%, down 50 basis points from the quarter before, but the overall average asking rent fell 9.9% over the year to $1.01 per square foot per month. The availability rate still rose, to 12.8%, because more vacant and occupied space was being marketed for lease.
- Atlanta. Vacancy fell from 9.3% to 8.6% over the year, and the report says asking rents kept rising across Atlanta through Q3.
- Cleveland and Detroit. These two have the lowest vacancy of the nine, and in both it rose over the year. Cleveland’s vacancy went from 3.8% to 4.0% in the third quarter as net absorption turned negative, while its average asking rent rose from $5.68 to $5.76 per square foot. In Detroit, net absorption turned positive at 2.0 million square feet after four quarters of negative absorption.
Per Month or Per Year? Read the Units First
It is easy to misread rent numbers, because markets quote them differently. The Los Angeles and Inland Empire reports state asking rent per square foot per month, on a triple-net basis. Some of the others, such as the Chicago and Houston reports, state it per square foot per year, and the national table’s figures match theirs. So Los Angeles, at $1.33 a month in its own report, shows $15.92 in the national table, and the Inland Empire, at $1.01 a month, shows $12.17, in each case about twelve times the monthly figure.
If a broker or a tenant quotes a rent for your building, ask whether it is per month or per year, and what the tenant pays on top of it. Under a triple-net rent, the tenant usually also pays the building’s property taxes, insurance and upkeep.
Also check which vacancy rate a report is quoting. In its text, the Atlanta report gives the direct vacancy rate, which leaves out sublease space: 7.8%, unchanged from the prior quarter and 80 basis points below Q3 2025. The overall rate for Atlanta in the national table, which counts sublet space, is 8.6%. The two numbers measure different things.
What the Numbers Can and Cannot Tell You About Your Property
A market vacancy rate covers many buildings of different ages, sizes and conditions. In the national report, C&W says warehouses built this decade drew the strongest demand, with 202 million square feet of net absorption so far in 2026, and that demand is starting to spill over into older buildings. So two buildings in the same market can see very different interest.
New construction matters as well: the national pipeline grew 23% over the year to 324 million square feet, its highest level since mid-2024. When new buildings open near yours, they can compete with it for tenants.
Your own building’s facts often matter more than any market average: its size, location, loading, clear height, condition and leases. We look at what similar industrial properties sell for, the rent the property earns or could earn, its condition, and the cost of any repairs it needs. For a closer look at what your property is worth, the sale prices of similar buildings nearby and the rent yours earns are the place to start. Whether you list the building or sell directly to a buyer, those facts carry more weight than a market headline.
Questions Owners Ask About Timing a Sale
Is now a good time to sell commercial property?
No market report can answer that for a single building. In Q3 2026, vacancy fell over the year in four of the nine markets above and rose in five, and asking rents rose in seven. Whether that is good news for you depends on your market, your building and your reasons for selling.
Should I wait for rents to rise before selling?
No one can promise where rents go next. The reports show rents moving both ways over the same year: up 19.9% in Dallas/Fort Worth and down 9.9% in the Inland Empire. If part of the building is empty, waiting means paying its taxes, insurance and upkeep in the meantime. Ask your accountant how the timing of a sale affects your taxes.
Where do these numbers come from, and how current are they?
They come from Cushman & Wakefield’s MarketBeat reports: the Q3 2026 national report and nine local reports, each listed with its read date at the bottom of this page. All nine local reports used here cover Q3 2026. Newer quarters and other reports may differ.
If You Are Thinking About Selling
Didenko Capital is a direct buyer of industrial real estate. We buy warehouses, IOS yards, and light-industrial and flex buildings from owners in all states. Asking for an offer is free, and you are not committed to anything unless you sign a purchase agreement. If you own industrial property and are even just thinking about selling, tell us about it.
Sources
Facts on this page come from the public sources listed at the bottom, read on the dates shown.
- Cushman & Wakefield, U.S. Industrial MarketBeat, Q3 2026 national report (PDF) (read 2026-10-17).
- Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Chicago Industrial, Q3 2026 report (PDF) (read 2026-10-17).
- Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Dallas/Fort Worth Industrial, Q3 2026 report (PDF) (read 2026-10-17).
- Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Los Angeles Industrial, Q3 2026 report (PDF) (read 2026-10-17).
- Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Atlanta Industrial, Q3 2026 report (PDF) (read 2026-10-17).
- Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Houston Industrial, Q3 2026 report (PDF) (read 2026-10-17).
- Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Inland Empire Industrial, Q3 2026 report (PDF) (read 2026-10-17).
- Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Cleveland Industrial, Q3 2026 report (PDF) (read 2026-10-17).
- Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Detroit Industrial, Q3 2026 report (PDF) (read 2026-10-17).
- Cushman & Wakefield, MarketBeat Philadelphia Industrial, Q3 2026 report (PDF) (read 2026-10-21).
- Cushman & Wakefield, Philadelphia MarketBeats, web page listing the current Philadelphia reports (read 2026-10-21).