Jeff Cox tells Shopping Center Business what to expect for single-tenant net lease sector in 2024

AUSTIN, Texas (Feb. 22, 2024) — Deal velocity and volume in 2024 hasn’t dramatically improved since the end of last year, but Executive Managing Director Jeff Cox anticipates that’ll change once interest rates drop – providing the “meaningful positive disrupter” the sector needs.

Cox provided these insights and more to Shopping Center Business as part of the publication’s annual overview of the single-tenant net lease (STNL): “Holding Pattern.”

Preliminary calculations predicted 2023 STNL investment sales volume at approximately $45 billion, representing the slowest annual volume recorded in more than a decade. With the highest all-time listing inventory, Cox said sellers have been slow to adjust pricing and buyers aren’t yet willing to pay or secure expected financing.  

“We anticipate that interest rates will come down during 2024,” Cox said. “Motivated sellers will move their properties to the front of the line by adjusting their expectations to reflect market-clearing pricing. When these two events occur, we expect to see an increase in transaction activity.”

In today’s STNL retail market, it’s not surprising that more all-cash deals are closing. However, net lease deals involving debt are still transacting.

“Our debt platform is outstanding at identifying creative debt solutions for all product types,” Cox said. “We offer our clients one-stop shopping when it comes to buying, selling and financing net lease, commercial and multifamily transactions.”

Cox highlighted some of Northmarq’s high-profile transactions in 2023, including:

• A newly built 192,800-square-foot FedEx Ground facility in Montana involving a California-based 1031 exchange buyer. 
• The seven-tenant health-care complex, Lakeside Professional Center, in the suburbs of Atlanta.
• A 909-unit self-storage portfolio in the high-growth metropolitan statistical area (MSA) of Louisville, Ky.
• Tesla's freestanding retail facility in Atlanta sold for $13.9 million. 
• The $9.5 million sale-leaseback of a North Carolina mission-critical industrial property. 
• Parkway Village, a shopping center anchored by Publix GreenWise Market in St. Augustine, Fla., sold for $24.1 million to a 1031 exchange buyer. 
• The refinancing of two California multifamily properties for a combined $142 million. 
• The $107 million sale of a 352-unit luxury multifamily community in Charlotte.

“Across the net lease spectrum and beyond, we've transacted deals of every shape and size for our clients over the past year,” Cox said.

Read Cox's full commentary in Shopping Center Business (page 44).