Dallas-Fort Worth Industrial Market Update Mid-Year 2026

Dallas-Fort Worth is the fourth-largest metro in the country by population, with 8,565,024 residents across 13 counties and 27% population growth over the past 16 years. The industrial base spans more than 1.25 billion square feet, anchored by DFW International Airport, BNSF Railway, and a manufacturing and logistics legacy in Tarrant County alongside rapid growth in the northern suburbs. This report is CoStar-sourced and produced for the Dallas-Fort Worth metro as a whole, built from data current as of August 3, 2026, and covering the twelve months ending mid-year 2026.

This report summarizes capital markets performance, leasing fundamentals, pricing dynamics, and strategic implications for owners, investors, and tenants operating across North Texas’s industrial market.

Executive Summary: A Market Running Ahead of Its Own History

Dallas-Fort Worth’s industrial market is absorbing an unusually large supply wave faster than its own long-run averages would predict, even as sales volume and rent growth trail their historical norms. Key signals from the trailing twelve months:

Asset value across Dallas-Fort Worth industrial stands at $194.6 billion, with $1.8 billion in sales volume over the trailing twelve months, about 78% of the market’s 10-year average of roughly $2.3 billion a year.
Transaction count tells a different story: 1,802 trades closed in the past year, roughly 21% above the market’s 10-year average of about 1,485 deals, pointing to a broader-based recovery built on smaller, more frequent transactions rather than a handful of mega-deals.
The market cap rate held at 6.2%, essentially in line with the 10-year average and up from a 2021 cycle trough of 5.5%.
Trailing 12-month net absorption reached 33.7 million square feet, about 75% above the market’s 10-year historical average of 19.3 million square feet.
Vacancy sits at 8.1%, modestly above the 7.7% historical average but compressing, down roughly 1.0 percentage point year over year.
Market asking rent growth slowed to 1.9%, well below the 3.6% historical average, even as the 47.2-million-square-foot construction pipeline behind that slowdown is 41.4% pre-leased and concentrated in large-format bulk logistics product.

Taken together, this is a market working through an oversized supply wave with unusual speed, while capital returns selectively rather than indiscriminately.

Capital Markets Performance Metrics (Mid-Year 2026)

Dallas-Fort Worth’s industrial capital markets carry a total asset value of $194.6 billion, the scale that keeps the metro on the radar of national and global institutional capital.

Total Asset Value: $194.6B
12-Month Sales Volume: $1.8B across 1,802 transactions
Market Cap Rate: 6.2% (average reported transaction cap rate 6.9%, ranging 4.5% to 10.6%)
Average Transaction Sale Price/SF: $140; Market Floor Sale Price/SF: $150, up 5.7% year over year

The trailing 12-month average sale price of $9.8 million runs well below 2025’s $12.3 million average, even as total transaction count is running ahead of history. That combination, more deals at a smaller average size, is consistent with private and mid-size buyers re-entering alongside the institutional capital that dominated headlines in 2025. National capital remains the dominant force in the buyer pool: through the first half of 2026, national buyers accounted for $635.7 million of the $881.7 million in total purchases, a net buyer position of $61.4 million, while both local and foreign capital were net sellers over the same period.

Cap Rate Dynamics and Pricing Power

Market cap rate of 6.2% is essentially in line with the market’s 10-year average and up from the 2021 cycle trough of 5.5%, though still below the roughly 6.5% pre-pandemic norm.
The average reported transaction cap rate of 6.9% spans a wide range, from 4.5% on the tightest, newest assets to 10.6% on higher-risk product.
Sale price closed an average of 7.9% below asking price across the trailing twelve months, with individual deals ranging from 50% below to 2.7% above asking.
Logistics assets have led the recovery, showing the smallest cap rate expansion of any property type since the 2022 trough and the fastest rebound in vacancy compression and rent growth.

Notable Sale Activity

Institutional capital returned to Dallas-Fort Worth in force over the past year, accounting for 57% of all industrial transactions in the first quarter of 2026 and an even larger share of bulk logistics trades. Blackstone, through its Link Logistics platform, has emerged as the most active buyer in the market, closing several of the period’s largest deals alongside repeat activity from Ares Management, AEW Capital Management, and Principal.

Blackstone’s Link Logistics platform acquired a 95% interest in a 25-building, Core+ logistics portfolio from Crow Holdings and PIMCO for $718 million; 16 of the properties sit in North Texas within the Core35 and Wildlife Commerce Park projects.
Ares Management acquired a 16-property portfolio from Link Logistics in the first quarter of 2026 for an estimated $584 million, including three infill sites in Pinnacle Park and the Valwood Industrial District.
The largest single-asset trade of the period was Building 4 at Freeport Crossing in Coppell (E DFW Air/Las Colinas submarket): AEW Capital Management paid $126.3 million ($174/SF) to Nuveen for the fully leased, 726,944-square-foot building in January 2026.

Leasing Market Fundamentals: Vacancy Compressing Against an Unusually Large Supply Wave

Leasing fundamentals across Dallas-Fort Worth reflect a market absorbing new supply faster than its own history, even as headline vacancy sits modestly above its long-run average.

Vacancy: 8.1% (10-year historical average: 7.7%; down roughly 1.0 point year over year)
Availability: 10.8%
Trailing 12-month net absorption: 33.7M SF (10-year historical average: 19.3M SF)
Trailing 12-month deliveries: 24.9M SF (10-year historical average: 23.1M SF)

Absorption running roughly 75% above its historical average, against deliveries only modestly ahead of trend, is why vacancy is compressing even from an elevated base. CoStar’s own forecast has vacancy edging up slightly further, to 8.4% in 2027, before easing back toward 7.6% to 7.8% by 2029 and 2030 as the current construction wave works through the pipeline. For now, leverage still favors tenants on second-generation and larger blocks, but that balance is shifting toward landlords on the newest, best-located product.

Development Pipeline and Supply Dynamics

Under construction: 47.2 million SF (4.2% of standing inventory), 41.4% pre-leased, well above the roughly 28 million SF that defined the market’s 2015-2019 pre-pandemic norm.
Since 2020, Dallas-Fort Worth has delivered more than 250 million SF of new industrial inventory, more than any other U.S. market and over a tenth of all new industrial space built nationally.
The largest project underway is a 1,700,000-SF building at 1221 W Industrial Blvd tied to Amazon, which broke ground in November 2024 and is slated for completion in September 2026.
NE Tarrant/Alliance leads all submarkets with 10.7 million SF under construction (34.5% pre-leased), followed by SE Dallas/I-45 at 3.8 million SF (53.8% pre-leased).
Construction remains skewed toward large-format bulk product: buildings currently under construction average about 149,000 SF, roughly three times the size of the market’s existing average building (48,600 SF).

Market Rents by Product Type

Logistics: $9.18/SF, 9.0% vacancy, 12.3% availability (937.0M SF, 75% of market inventory)
Specialized Industrial: $12.71/SF, 4.3% vacancy, 4.7% availability (185.4M SF, 15% of market inventory)
Flex: $15.02/SF, 7.2% vacancy, 8.4% availability (127.3M SF, 10% of market inventory)
Market blended average: $10.29/SF, 8.1% vacancy, 10.8% availability

Specialized Industrial is the tightest segment by far, at 4.3% vacancy and 4.7% availability, less than half the vacancy rate of both Logistics and Flex.

Rent Growth Drivers

Market asking rent growth has slowed to 1.9% year over year, down sharply from the 10.4% peak recorded in the fourth quarter of 2022, and below the market’s 3.6% historical average.
Growth is expected to bottom out around 0.7% for full-year 2026 before reaccelerating to 3.0% in 2027 and climbing back toward the historical average by 2029-2030.
Data center and hyperscaler demand, including Google and Amazon leasing warehouse space to store equipment, has pulled average bulk logistics lease sizes up from roughly 213,000 SF to 260,000 SF between the first quarters of 2025 and 2026, alongside a roughly 70% jump in leasing volume over that span.
Growing sublease availability, with sublet asking rents averaging about 30% below direct space, is adding pressure that could cap further rent growth recovery even as vacancy improves.

Small-Bay and Owner-User Space

Small-bay and owner-user products tell a more complicated story than the headline numbers suggest. Specialized Industrial, the segment that best fits owner-users and businesses in the $1M-$6M revenue range, carries essentially no room to grow into: 4.3% vacancy and 4.7% availability, both less than half the market average. But CoStar’s leasing data shows demand actually softening at the small end: net absorption for industrial and flex space of 50,000 SF or less has turned negative over the past year, with roughly 2 million square feet shed and vacancy in that cohort up nearly 150 basis points, as rising rents and a weaker residential market push some smaller users to shrink their footprint or exit altogether.

Owners and tenants shouldn’t read that softening as new availability, because almost none of the construction pipeline is being built to serve them. Specialized Industrial accounts for just 6.6 million of the 47.2 million square feet under construction market-wide, 14%, while Logistics accounts for 38.7 million square feet, 82%. Flex space, the closest substitute at 127.3 million square feet (10% of total inventory), is not growing meaningfully either: only 1.9 million square feet is under construction, and its own net absorption has been negative in 2026. There is no single small-bay project in the current data bucking that large-format trend; the pipeline is genuinely concentrated in buildings sized for national logistics tenants, not owner-users. Triple-net rents for spaces under 50,000 SF currently range from $10 to $12 per square foot in infill locations to $12 to $15 per square foot for newer product in high-growth outer submarkets.

Strategic Market Positioning

For Owners and Owner-Occupants: If you own or occupy a smaller Specialized Industrial building, you’re sitting on a genuinely scarce asset: 4.3% vacancy and next to nothing being built to compete with you. That scarcity should support both resale pricing and renewal leverage even as the broader market’s headline vacancy sits above its historical average. If you’re in the market to buy for your own operation, expect a thin pool of options under 50,000 square feet and be ready to move fast, widen your search radius into submarkets like Denton, Wise County, or Parker County where pricing is more accessible, or seriously evaluate a build-to-suit, since the current pipeline isn’t going to hand you a ready-made option. On pricing, the average sale is closing 7.9% below asking, so there’s room to negotiate on second-generation product, particularly buildings competing with the wave of larger, investment-grade bulk space now hitting the for-sale market.
For Tenants: Specialized Industrial space is close to fully leased across Dallas-Fort Worth, so if your footprint falls in that range, start your search early and don’t expect much relief from the vacancy compression happening in bulk logistics. Flex space is the closest substitute, but it’s barely growing and carries its own negative absorption in 2026, so treat it as a bridge option, not a deep bench. Triple-net rents in the $10 to $15 per square foot range for smaller spaces reflect that scarcity, and landlords with well-located, well-maintained small-bay product have little reason to negotiate hard on rate. Where you do have leverage is on larger, second-generation bulk space, where rising sublease availability at roughly 30% below direct rents gives tenants real alternatives and more room to push on concessions.
For Institutional Buyers: Cap rates have stabilized close to the market’s 10-year average at 6.2%, and institutional capital is unmistakably back, accounting for 57% of transactions in the first quarter of 2026 alone, led by Blackstone, Ares, and other repeat national buyers. Logistics remains the segment of choice, having shown the shallowest cap rate expansion and fastest rent recovery of any property type since the 2022 peak.

Market Outlook and Investment Thesis

Capital Markets Outlook: With cap rates holding near their 10-year average and transaction counts already running above historical norms, Dallas-Fort Worth should continue attracting both institutional and mid-size private capital through the balance of 2026. Regional banks have grown more willing to lend against well-leased product, and forecast cap rates are expected to hold in the low 6% range through 2027 before compressing modestly toward 6.0% to 6.1% by 2029-2030. Elevated for-sale listings among newer, vacant bulk logistics assets, now roughly seven times the 2022 level, should keep pricing discipline in place and reward buyers who can underwrite real, in-place cash flow rather than speculative lease-up.
Leasing Outlook: Expect vacancy to tick modestly higher, toward 8.3% to 8.4%, through 2027 as the current construction wave finishes delivering, before easing back toward 7.6% to 7.8% by 2029 and 2030. Rent growth should bottom out around the current 1.9% to 2.0% range in the back half of 2026, then rebuild toward the market’s 3.6% historical average by decade’s end. The scarcity story in small-bay and Specialized Industrial space is structural, not cyclical: with construction overwhelmingly concentrated in large-format bulk product, owners and tenants of smaller buildings should expect that segment to stay tight regardless of how the broader vacancy rate moves.

Explore the Dallas-Fort Worth Business & Industrial Market Guide

Brent Pennington, CCIM, ALC

Advisor, Senior Vice President

Metroport Commercial Group, eXp Commercial

1720 Bray Central Drive, Ste 100, McKinney, TX 75069

Phone: 817-999-8266

Email: brent@metroportcommercial.com

Website: www.metroportcre.com

Data Sources: CoStar Group, Dallas-Fort Worth Industrial Submarket and Capital Markets Reports, August 2026.