Though industrial real estate investing has, on average, single-digit returns on investment, its main benefit is that it has very strong fundamentals. Not only is the demand for industrial real estate rather recession-resistant (and first to recover when it is not), but the pricing by square foot rather neatly matches local supply and demand curves, unlike habitation real estate that can be pulled away from real prices by wild speculation.
Also, the current industrial real estate market -- especially for smaller properties less than 10,000 square feet -- is ripe for investment as older mom and pop owners look to sell off the properties they bought in the 1980s and 1990s, most of which have significant value-add opportunities, having seen little capital improvement since their original purchase.
