Five Types of Commercial Real Estate

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Voit’s brokerage division was founded in 1987 and throughout the years, has achieved extraordinary results for our clients.

Our brokerage professionals are a tightly integrated group of market leaders who work closely with each other and our clients to provide:

Local market knowledge
Real-time data
And exceptional service

This ensures our clients make carefully informed real estate decisions to maximize value.

Moreover, there are a variety of types of commercial real estate, five of which we will detail below. Let’s get started.

Below are five types of commercial real estate, along with a brief description of each.

Office

Commercial office buildings include low, mid, and high rise.

A low-rise building is only a few stories tall and typically does not need an elevator; a mid-rise building is typically five to six stories high with an elevator; a high-rise building is taller than six stories.

Office buildings are also designated as either Class A, Class B, or Class C.

Class A: Typically best location and construction.
Class B: Less desirable location but a similar quality of construction to Class A.
Class C: Likely run down and in a less desirable location.

Read on for more on office space, specifically converting warehouses to office space: the trend of the future.

Industrial

Industrial space refers to any commercial property used specifically for industrial purposes. This includes:

Warehousing
Manufacturing
Storage
Logistics
Showrooms

Industrial CRE can include a variety of buildings whose categories include:

Bulk warehouse: Large properties (~50,000-1,000,000 square feet) used for product distribution
Flex warehouse: Easily convertible space; sometimes called mixed-use
Heavy manufacturing: Special use facilities; used by most large manufacturers
Light assembly: Easy to reconfigure; buildings are often used for storage, product assembly, office space, etc.

Retail

Commercial real estate retail properties include strip malls or shopping centers, retail centers (i.e. grocery stores, drug stores, restaurants), big-box retailer centers, etc.

Multifamily

Multi-family CRE is defined as “any income-generating property used for residential purposes.” Unlike single-family rental homes, a multifamily property must have at least two units to be defined as such.

Multifamily properties can include:

Duplexes
Triplexes
Quadruplexes
Garden apartments
Mid and high-rise apartments

Read on to learn about the evolution of multifamily property.

Land

Although it sounds simple enough, land transactions can be complex when considering zoning, utilities, growth plans, development districts, etc. These types of transactions might include infill, rural, brownfield, and greenfield or agricultural land.

What Realms Do We Work In at Voit?

There are, of course, additional types of CRE. At Voit, however, our core brokerage services extend to institutional and private clients for sales and leasing in the following property types:

Office
Industrial
R&D
Flex
Retail
Medical
Multi-Family
Land
REO Distressed Assets
Note Sales

Interested in learning more? Read on to find out how much you need to save for your commercial property’s down payment.

Five Types of Commercial Real Estate