From January to September, more than 900 thousand square meters of class A + and A logistics condominiums in the State of São Paulo secured new tenants, according to the SiiLA Brasil real estate research platform. This performance is higher than in the same period of 2019 when gross absorption totalled 741,690 thousand square meters over the 1st, 2nd and 3rd quarters. In the third quarter of 2020 alone, 310,592 square meters of high-end warehouses had new tenants in the State, an increase of 51.2% when compared to the 3rd quarter of 2019. 

This behaviour corroborates SiiLA Brasil's forecast that the logistics market would be remarkably resilient in 2020 and would even increase its value in the middle of the pandemic.

Another fact that confirms this is the balance between tenants inflows and outflows (net absorption), which from July and September stood at 162.4 thousand square meters for the A + and A projects in São Paulo. It is interesting to note that, in the period, both the most significant entry and the most relevant exit were made by construction material and/or decoration companies. While Madeira Madeira became the tenant of 21,289 square meters of GLP Jundiaí III, Sodimac dropped 19,842 square meters of Prologis Cajamar III, this same space now controlled by an expansion of Amazon in the same project.

Due to the uncertainties arising from the increasing COVID-19 cases, the performance shows that, after a soft break in the second quarter, the market returned to what it had been printing from January to March 2020, mainly driven by e-commerce and retailing, in addition to food, beverages and tobacco, which together accounted for 21.8% of the period's absorptions.

The deceleration in the previous quarter reflected in the net absorption numbers, which reduced from 181.3 thousand square meters until March, to 45.1 thousand square meters between April and June, increasing the average vacancy from 17.7% to 18.4% high-end segment. Now, the vacancy rate dropped again to 17.2%, the lowest rate since the 3rd quarter of 2012.

In the 2020's third quarter, 82,721 new square meters, all of a high standard, were made available to the São Paulo market, bringing the total inventory to 7,822,422 square meters (A + and A). It is worth mentioning that over 33% of the new list was of delivered leased.

CAJAMAR REMINS STRONG

With the largest assets of high-end logistics condominiums in São Paulo, Cajamar currently has 1,557,953 square meters, and an occupancy rate of 88.58% at the end of 2020s the third quarter.

The region had new tenants during the period, with the expansion of Amazon at the Prologis Cajamar III (19,842 square meters) and Mercado Livre at the GLP Cajamar II (leased another 14,418 square meters of the development, which was now all under its control). The region's net absorption in the third quarter closed at 21,947 square meters. In all areas mapped by SiiLA Brasil, Cajamar was the third with the highest number of leases in the period, behind Guarulhos, with 77,741 square meters, and Jundiaí, with 23,222 square meters of gross absorption.

The performance of the three regions reflects the logistical strength of areas set within a radius of 30 km from the city of São Paulo, including the concentration of absorptions in Cajamar should continue to accelerate since the region is expected to deliver almost 1,000,000 square meters by the end of 2022 of high standard condominiums.

Within a 60km radius, Campinas and Atibaia regions also performed well. In Campinas, the highlights were the entries from Marel (in the food, beverage and tobacco segment), Ever Express, MD Delivery and Gran Cofee.

In Atibaia, nearly 17,000 square meters of the Barão de Mauá condominium were leased by SMP Automotive (8,632 square meters) and Viskase (8,023 m²), in the food, beverage and tobacco sector.

NEARLY 150 THOUSAND SQUARE METERS MORE IN BRAZIL

From July to September, 148,000 square meters of new high-end logistics condominiums were delivered to the national market of warehouses A + and A. The average vacancy in all states monitored by the platform was of 17.17%, a reduction of 1,88 pp when compared to the previous period. It is the result of a gross absorption of 561,297 square meters and a final net balance of 350,431 square meters, between incoming and outgoing tenant companies.

In addition to the new 82,721 square meters in São Paulo, there were also openings in Rio Grande do Sul (41,180 square meters); in Minas Gerais (18,254 square meters); and in Espírito Santo (5,900 square meters).

While in some regions vacancy is below 10%, such as Espírito Santo, which does not have free spaces in high-end developments and Santa Catarina with 4.28%, in Manaus, the rate is around 47%. The pandemic hindered the production in the Free Zone as there was a shortage of imports of supplies, the capital of Amazonas was the only region in the country to record negative net balance in the quarter: -1,853 square meters.

A+, A and B

The whole of Brazil has 319 logistical condominiums among the classifications A +, A and B. There are 16,655,729 square meters, with an occupancy rate of 83.87% and an average asking price of R$18.89 per square meter.