Industrial Hiring Reshapes U.S. Commercial Real Estate Demand

By Grace Kim

San Antonio rose from 76th to ninth place in the National Association of REALTORS’ third-quarter 2026 Commercial Real Estate Demand Index, while Seattle jumped from 146th to 44th and Nashville climbed from 73rd to 20th.

NAR’s report, released Tuesday, tracks 306 U.S. metropolitan areas. A score of 100 represents the average metro, with higher scores indicating stronger relative demand drivers and lower scores reflecting weaker momentum.

Where did the strongest demand signals appear?

Of the 306 metropolitan areas, 143 scored above 100 in the third quarter:

• St. George, Utah, retained the top position with 132.
• Huntsville, Alabama, followed at 125.
• Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, Arkansas, and Sherman-Denison, Texas, each scored 123.
• Ocala, Florida, recorded 121.

The year-over-year ranking changes were equally sharp:

• San Antonio posted the largest improvement, moving from 76th to ninth.
• Seattle advanced from 146th to 44th.
• Nashville rose from 73rd to 20th.
• Austin also entered the top 10.

The main result is a sharp reshuffling, not a uniform rise across the country.

What did the hiring data show?

Industrial employment remained relatively flat nationwide. Stronger hiring in manufacturing, transportation and warehousing helped lift demand indicators in select metropolitan areas, so the national pattern was not a broad industrial upswing.

Leisure and hospitality employment increased in approximately two-thirds of metropolitan areas, while retail trade employment continued to lag. For an individual worker, the practical read is metro by metro and sector by sector: manufacturing, transportation and warehousing hiring carries the clearest signal of stronger commercial demand, hospitality has wider geographic support, and retail offers less momentum.

That does not mean every role in a rising metro has the same prospects. It means a candidate weighing local markets has more useful evidence in the direction of company hiring than in a flat national industrial employment figure.

For workers, the relevant market is a specific metro and sector, not the national industrial headline.

How should workers read the index?\n

Miami, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco all remained below the index average. San Francisco nevertheless gained about five points from the same period a year earlier, showing that a market can improve without crossing the 100 threshold.

“The story this quarter is where companies are hiring,” said Nadia Evangelou, NAR’s principal economist and director of real estate research.

Evangelou said metro areas with similar vacancy rates and rent growth can have significantly different demand prospects depending on where job creation occurs. In practical terms, two markets can show the same current property conditions yet offer different demand signals because one is attracting more of the employment that supports future space needs.

The index measures the economic factors influencing commercial real estate demand across 306 metropolitan areas, and employment trends provide an additional measure of underlying conditions. A score below 100 does not necessarily mean that a market is contracting.

Next quarter’s key signal will be whether the same metropolitan areas keep gaining company hiring; if job creation shifts, the demand ranking can shift with it. For now, local hiring, rather than the national industrial headline, explains much of this quarter’s divergence.