Denver commercial real estate players close more deals faster using Crexi’s commercial real estate platform. Nationwide, investors and tenants eye Denver’s commercial property market as an attractive investment option with promising fundamentals and a favorable return on investment.
Crexi’s tools enhance buyer and tenant workflows, allowing active property seekers to browse thousands of Denver properties and connect quickly with their representation. Brokers also harness Crexi’s listing, lead management, and marketing suite to close deals in Denver and the surrounding cities quickly.
Crexi’s robust marketplace and powerful listing tools allow Denver agents and property seekers to quickly connect and find their ideal investment with a few clicks. As of this writing, Crexi has facilitated over $330 billion in property transactions and represented properties valued at more than $2 trillion total.
Crexi proudly supports Denver, Boulder, Lakewood, Aurora, and the surrounding regions as the fastest-growing online commercial real estate marketplace.
The State of Commercial Real Estate in Denver
Located in Northern Colorado along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, metropolitan Denver comprises 70 counties, cities, and economic development groups. The region is home to seven enterprise zones and is a leader for growth in STEM jobs.
Metropolitan Denver has been ranked as one of the best cities for startups and entrepreneurs, with the most job opportunities, and one of the top four places for business and careers. The population of Denver has soared by 19% since 2010, with both residents and businesses attracted to a higher quality of life and a pro-business government.
Denver is also the cultural center and sports capital of the Rocky Mountain Region, with six certified creative districts and the most extensive public park system of any US city. Its professional sports teams include the Denver Broncos, Denver Nuggets, and Colorado Rockies.
Denver Regional Breakdown
The population of Colorado boomed by almost 750,000 people over the past decade. While Denver grew by more than 19%, smaller Front Range counties like Broomfield and Weld have increased by more than 30% over the past ten years:
- Denver is home to nearly 716,000 people within the city and almost 3 million in the metropolitan area.
- Front Range of Colorado includes Denver, Boulder, Greeley, and Fort Collins and is collectively home to over 5 million residents.
- Denver is the capital of Colorado and the most populous city in the state.
- The median age in Denver is 36.7 years, a little less than the median in the US.
- In Denver, median household income increased by nearly 7.8% last year, while property values rose by more than 4%.
- Denver’s per capita income is $44,806, and median household income is $85,641.
Denver Job Market
Metropolitan Denver is leading growth in STEM jobs, beating out traditional tech havens such as Seattle, San Francisco, and Austin. Cities with a growing number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics jobs traditionally see higher job growth overall, a greater ability to attract other highly-educated workers, and a rising standard of living:
- GDP for Denver-Aurora-Lakewood is $223 billion and has grown by nearly 57% over the past decade.
- The unemployment rate in Denver is 4.5% as of November 2021.
- Denver’s fastest-growing employment sectors are leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, trade and transportation, and education and health services.
- Key industry clusters in Denver include health & wellness, transportation & logistics, outdoor recreation, advanced manufacturing, and technology & information.
- Five of the top employers in Denver are Charles Schwab, BP Lower 48, Panasonic, United Launch Alliance, and Sierra Nevada Space Systems.
- The University of Denver, University of Colorado, and Regis University are three of the top educational institutions in the metropolitan area.
- Over 92% of the residents of Denver are high school graduates, while nearly 46% hold a bachelor’s degree or an advanced degree.
The transportation infrastructure of metropolitan Denver includes five interstate highways, freight rail service, 122 miles of completed and planned commuter and light rail lines, and Denver International Airport, the sixth-busiest airport in the US.
Denver Industrial Market
The Denver industrial market continues to perform well, with net absorption of industrial space in 2021 nearly double the 2020 year-end total. New tenants are entering the market while existing tenants are taking more space, helping to create sustained demand for industrial space in Denver:
- Total industrial inventory: 254,069,477 SF
- Average asking rent: $10.12 per SF per year, overall, NNN
- Vacancy rate: 6.1%
- Absorption: 8.7 million SF through Q4 2021
- Key lease transactions by tenant: Hawthorne Hydroponics, FedEx, HD Supply, Keller Warehousing
- New construction: 3.4 million SF completed in Q4 2021 with 6.6 million SF under construction
- Key sales transactions by buyer: J.P. Morgan, Westcore, Realterm Logistics, BREIT with an average selling price of $340/S.F.
- Largest industrial submarkets: Northeast, Northwest, Central
Learn more about Denver industrial property for lease.
Denver Office Market
Office leasing activity in Denver is projected to trend positive this year, as more tenants identify long-term strategies and companies come back to the office. Flight-to-quality, spec suites, and shorter-term leases are expected to remain commonplace while asking rents should remain steady since most landlords kept rents stable throughout the pandemic:
- Total office inventory: 120,449,170 SF
- Average asking rents: $31.13 per SF year, full service gross, all classes
- Vacancy rate: 19.9%
- Absorption: -2.5 million SF YTD
- Leasing activity: 7.2 million SF YTD
- Key leases by tenant: York Space Systems for 138,000 SF, AT&T for 71,000 SF, Ball Aerospace for 41,000 SF
- New construction: 1.1 million SF delivered YTD with 788,860 SF currently under construction.
- Key sales by property: Gateway Center (4 building portfolio) for $66.9 million, Creekside Business Park (3 buildings) for $37.8 million, and Revolution 360 (3600 Brighton Blvd.) for $72 million
- Largest office submarkets: Southeast Suburban, Central Business District, Northwest, Southeast Central
Learn more about Denver office property for lease.
Denver Retail Market
Retail leasing activity in Denver has been improving since summer 2021, with asking rents and net absorption on the rise. Throughout the pandemic, sporting good retailers have remained popular, with occupiers like Dick’s Sporting Goods leasing 43,000 SF in the Lakewood submarket last March:
- Total retail inventory: 89,225,002 SF
- Average asking rent: $16.87 per SF per year, NNN
- Vacancy rate: 7.0%
- Absorption: 112,959 SF year-over-year (as of Q3 2021)
- New construction: 0 SF delivered YTD with no new retail currently under construction
- Sale summary: Average cap rate 6.2%, average price/S.F. $227, with sale-leasebacks becoming a common strategy for companies in need of cash
- Largest retail submarkets: Northwest, West, South, Southeast
Learn more about Denver retail property for lease.
Denver Multifamily Market
Multifamily vacancy rates in Denver are at a six-year low, driving asking rents up by 13.5% year-over-year. In fact, during Q3 2021 alone, rents rose by nearly 7%. Investor activity in the Denver apartment market is sturdy, with the median sales price per unit at $300,500 and cap rates compressing below 4%:
- Total housing units: 1,216,335
- Renter occupied: 36%
- Average asking rent: $1,734
- Effective annual rent growth: 13.5% year-over-year
- Vacancy rate: 4.5%
- New construction: 7,468 units delivered through Q3 2021, with 32,098 units currently under construction
- Sales activity: Median sales price per unit $300,500, 3.9% average cap rate year-to-date, with cap rates on recent sales at 3.5% or lower
- Recent sales by property: Griffis Cheesman Park $580,000/unit, Park 17 $467,000/unit, Griffis Marston Lake $404,000/unit
- Median household income: $85,641
- Per capita income: $44,806
Learn more about Denver multifamily property for sale.
How Crexi Connects Buyers and Tenants to Denver Commercial Properties
Buyers and tenants nationwide utilize Crexi to explore hundreds of Denver properties across multiple asset types. Denver’s vibrant cultural life and growing technology sector represent a market ripe with investment options, low vacancy rates, and attractive cap rates.
Actively-seeking principals and tenants can quickly sift through Denver property for sale and lease via Crexi’s powerful, open search platform. Searchers can navigate assets by price or rate per square foot, square footage available, asset class, property subtype, cap rate, and neighborhood.
Once a buyer or tenant finds their property match, they can directly reach out to the listing broker via Crexi’s messenger. Denver property buyers can download brochures and OMs and even submit their letter of intent (LOI) through Crexi’s secure platform.
Intelligence Connects Investors to Data and Market Knowledge
In-market information and data make all the difference for Denver investors and renters seeking to make the best possible property decisions: here’s where Crexi Intelligence shines.
Crexi Intelligence is a subscription-based database and property research enhancement tool that equips investors and tenants with thousands of third-party-verified sales comps and in-depth market information. With Intelligence, buyers and tenants can instantly access regional trends and detailed demographic insights on every property’s page.
Intelligence is available to buyers, sellers, and tenants on a subscription basis.
How Denver Brokers Thrive with Crexi
Crexi showcases more than 1,800 Denver properties for sale and for lease in the broader Arapahoe County region. Multifamily and industrial are among the most popular Denver property types, attracting investors seeking favorable cap rates and prime selections for 1031 exchanges.
Using Crexi, Denver listing brokers can market and manage assets across property types, including:
- Industrial units
- Land Parcels
- Office buildings
- Multifamily units
- Mixed-Use developments
- Hospitality facilities
- Retail buildings
- Non-traditional buildings such as medical offices, self-storage, data centers, etc.
Crexi’s digital tools let brokers guide their listings from market to close with little friction and maximum reach. Denver realtors can connect with engaged leads and gain real-time insight into buyer and tenant behavior. Too, Crexi’s secure file storage enables brokers to digitally manage any due diligence paperwork safely.
However, Crexi’s broker technology’s full potential is unlocked with Sale PRO, Lease PRO, and All PRO.
Crexi All PRO
Crexi Sale PRO and Lease PRO simplify Denver brokers’ workflows with robust lead management tools, branded lead reports, and insightful marketing data. PRO brokers’ listings receive preferential tile placement atop Crexi’s search pages, immediately visible to buyers and tenants looking for Denver properties.
Crexi also sends out weekly email blasts to thousands of leads nationwide, highlighting a machine-learning-curated selection of PRO listings based on each user’s browsing behavior. This customization earns these PRO properties a higher click-through rate (CTR) average of 10-15% more than the industry standard.
Crexi PRO members also enjoy unfettered access to Intelligence’s over 40 million sales comps and property records.
Brokers — including those in the Maricopa County region — use Crexi PRO to efficiently connect with the nearly 140,000 leads interested in Denver in the last two years and more than 12.5 million leads nationwide who browsed on Crexi in 2021.
On average, PRO brokers attract 125% more leads and win six to eight more deals on average than non-PRO users.
Contact support@crexi.com to learn more about All PRO.
