According to a recent report, there is a huge demand for warehouse property, which is being fuelled by the growth of e-commerce sales.
The COVID-19 crisis has driven down demand for retail property, but has created a huge interest in acquiring warehouses to process online orders. According to Richard Lowe, writing for IPE Real Assets (IPE), logistics is the top sector on property investors’ lists.
The Managing Director of Fund Management at GLP, Ralf Wessel, told IPE that:
“There is a wall of capital trying to find its way out of retail and out of hotels and into logistics. The reality is what happens from COVID is a tremendous acceleration from physical shopping to online shopping.”
Wessel says that the upward trend for e-commerce started years before the COVID-19 crisis. Many retailers had already planned to launch or expand their online operations, but the pandemic has accelerated the growth of online shopping and caused retailers to bring forward their online sales expansion plans.
Many investors already have experience in logistics investing, but other fund managers are looking at investing for the first time. Investment funds have reported that they are being asked to provide more investment opportunities in warehouse property.
After the virus threat is over, it is expected that online sales will remain healthy, and not every consumer will return to retail shops.
Many new warehouses are also being built, and existing ones have expanded their capacity. This is great news for every warehouse equipment supplier.
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