Particularly strong sectors were rental apartments, industrial properties, and office spaces
Boosted by strong activity in Q4, total commercial investment property sales volumes in the GTA increased to $22.6 billion in 2019.
In its 2020 GTA Flash Report, Altus Group said that this was the second highest annual investment volume the region has seen since 2000.
Much of the impetus for this strength was in the rental apartment sector, which reached a new record high of $3.8 billion in investment last year, fully 40% above 2018 volumes.
Another exceptional segment was the industrial property market, which had $4.4 billion in investment, 31% higher year-over-year. Offices achieved an unprecedented $4.1 billion, inching up by 2% from 2018.
“Industrial and multiunit rental apartments are probably the two most attractive asset classes. Office is just as strong,” Morguard director of research Keith Reading told Mortgage Broker News last month. “Commercial real estate remained one of the most attractive and stable long-term investments in 2019 and will continue to attract interest from investors in 2020.”
“The big thing for investors is that they look at commercial real estate as a defensive asset. It’s a solid long-term investment as opposed to equities markets, where you get more fluctuation and more volatility. So I think that in the economic environment that we’re in, real estate definitely seen as an asset that will perform over the long term.”
