Family Offices Turn Focus Away from Office Towers and Toward Industrial

“The bullishness of industrial as an asset class is highly attractive to high-net-worth, family office and institutional investors, and it continues to grow in investment capital at the expense of other sectors, especially office,” says San Francisco-based Al Pontius, senior vice president, national director for office, industrial and healthcare at real estate services firm Marcus & Millichap.

Traditionally, family offices favored office towers, especially those that were located in the central business districts (CBDs) of core U.S. cities, Pontius notes. That was partly because those types of properties allowed investors to deploy large sums of capital in a single transaction, adds Philadelphia-based Adrian Ponsen, national director, U.S. industrial market analysis, at real estate data firm CoStar Group.