Moody’s predicts that the demographic shift will intensify over the next few years, with the Southeast realizing the greatest population gains in the nation, notes Wagner.
With rapid growth across markets in the Southeast, the region has emerged as a diverse, economic powerhouse, resulting in strong commercial real estate fundamentals for all property types. The Southeast’s rosy story is the result of a shift in both population and business growth from the Rust Belt to these Southeastern markets and a reflection of the region’s desirability.
Collectively, the six states comprising the region—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee—would form the sixth largest country in the world from a GDP standpoint, according to the Urban Land Institute (ULI). Over the last three to four years the Southeast has also experienced the greatest population growth in the United States. The Atlanta population increased by 1.6 percent, Miami’s by 1.5 percent and the population of Raleigh, N.C. by 2.5 percent, compared to 0.5 percent population growth in Los Angeles and Boston during the same period, 0.25 percent in New York City and Philadelphia and a population decline in Chicago, notes Dan Wagner, Atlanta-based regional research manager with commercial real estate services firm CBRE. Wagner authored a series of recent reports on the Southeast’s real estate markets.