The Metroplex’s industrial market has vaulted past the Bay Area on the way to tallying more than $3.3B in sales through the third quarter and earning the crown for highest sales volume in the U.S., according to a new report.

Part of the appeal of industrial properties in Dallas-Fort Worth is the fact that they traded for less than the national average of $130 per SF, according to the latest industrial market report from CommercialEdge.

Investors were able to get into the country’s busiest industrial market at an average of $126 per SF.

One of the biggest industrial deals of the last quarter was the 1.1M SF that investment firm Stonepeak picked up in the Alliance area of Fort Worth from institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

It was an exciting acquisition for Stonepeak, thanks to the property’s proximity to the Fort Worth Alliance cargo airport, the BNSF Alliance intermodal terminal and major rail lines, Senior Managing Director Phill Solomond said.

“We believe that high-quality real estate adjacent to transport infrastructure will continue to outperform given its mission-critical role in local and national supply chains,” Solomond said in a statement.

The Metroplex had more than 15M SF of industrial space in development last month, which easily led the South and placed DFW at No. 2 in the country, behind Phoenix.

DFW’s more than 8% growth in year-over-year in-place rents was only edged out by Nashville and Atlanta among Sun Belt markets. However, DFW's average rent of $6.11 per SF is higher than Atlanta's rate of $5.97 per SF.

But the region's vacancy rates continue to surpass 2023 and sit above its long-term average. The Metroplex’s 7.5% vacancy rate is also above the national average of 7%, according to CommercialEdge, which is part of California-based property management software company Yardi Systems. Still, DFW’s rate is below the 8.5% vacancy rate in Memphis and the 10.3% rate in Tampa.

Higher vacancy rates typically follow a burst of industrial construction, which accelerated in DFW in 2022.

Among the 90M SF that came online between 2019 and 2021, vacancy was under 4%, well below the Metroplex’s regional historic average for newer assets. Projects that delivered during the last two years are the culprits for the higher rate, with an average vacancy rate of 32% for the most recent quarter.

Real estate investment firm Bixby Capital Management kicked off Q4 with the acquisition of three Class-A industrial buildings built in December 2023. The buildings' 42-acre site added nearly 534K SF to the California-based firm’s industrial portfolio in DFW.

A separate report from CommercialSearch earlier this year placed DFW as the No. 1 metro in the nation for distribution and warehousing.