Southeast CRE Markets: Why Charlotte, Atlanta, and Raleigh Lead
The Southeastern United States has quietly become the most important growth region in American commercial real estate. According to CBRE's 2025 U.S. Real Estate Market Outlook, the Southeast holds the highest concentration of top-ranked markets for job growth, population migration, and CRE investment activity.
Three metros — Charlotte, Atlanta, and Raleigh-Durham — sit at the center of this shift.
The Migration Engine
The Southeast's CRE momentum is fundamentally driven by population migration. U.S. Census data shows that the Southeast has been the largest net recipient of domestic migration for five consecutive years. The top destinations share common characteristics: lower cost of living than coastal metros, no state income tax (in some states), growing tech employment bases, and quality-of-life factors that attract both workers and employers.
For CRE developers, population growth is the most reliable leading indicator of demand across every asset class — multifamily, industrial, office, and retail.
Charlotte: The Financial Services Hub Goes Tech
Charlotte has transcended its identity as a banking center to become a diversified growth market. While Bank of America and Wells Fargo remain major employers, the metro has attracted significant technology, fintech, and advanced manufacturing investment.
Key CRE indicators for Charlotte:
Population growth: 2.1% annually, among the fastest in the nation
Industrial vacancy: 5.8%, driven by e-commerce distribution demand
Multifamily absorption: Record levels, supported by 50,000+ annual net migration
Office: Flight to quality accelerating, with Class A properties in South End and Uptown outperforming
Charlotte's infrastructure advantages include the intersection of I-77 and I-85 (creating a major logistics crossroads), Charlotte Douglas International Airport (a major cargo hub), and proximity to the Port of Charleston for import distribution.
Atlanta: Scale and Diversity
Atlanta is the Southeast's largest CRE market by every measure — total inventory, transaction volume, and development pipeline. Its scale creates liquidity and institutional appeal that smaller Southeast markets cannot match.
Atlanta's CRE fundamentals in 2025:
Industrial: 40+ million SF under construction, driven by the Savannah port expansion and e-commerce logistics
Multifamily: 30,000+ units in the pipeline, concentrated along the BeltLine and in suburban town centers
Data centers: Emerging as a secondary hyperscale market, with significant investment in Douglas and Henry counties
Life sciences: Growing cluster in Midtown/Emory corridor
The Savannah port connection is a critical differentiator. As the fastest-growing U.S. container port, Savannah's expansion is driving industrial demand across the I-16 and I-75 corridors into metro Atlanta.
Raleigh-Durham: The Research Triangle Advantage
Raleigh-Durham combines a world-class research university ecosystem (Duke, UNC, NC State) with a rapidly diversifying tech economy. The Research Triangle has attracted Apple, Google, and dozens of biotechnology companies, creating demand across office, lab, and industrial asset classes.
Raleigh-Durham CRE indicators:
Office: One of the few U.S. markets with positive net absorption in 2024
Life sciences: Growing lab inventory, though at smaller scale than Boston or San Francisco
Industrial: Tight vacancy driven by tech supply chain and distribution demand
Multifamily: Strong rent growth supported by high-income job creation
The market's education and research infrastructure creates a talent pipeline that differentiates it from other Southeast markets — particularly for tenants in technology, biotech, and advanced manufacturing.
Why Institutional Capital Is Flowing Southeast
Institutional investors are increasing Southeast allocations for structural reasons: population growth provides demand tailwinds, lower basis creates more attractive risk-adjusted returns compared to coastal markets, business-friendly regulatory environments reduce entitlement risk, and diversified economic drivers reduce single-industry concentration risk.
According to MSCI Real Assets, Southeastern markets captured over 25% of total U.S. CRE transaction volume in 2024, up from 18% five years ago.
AI-Native Market Analysis
The speed of Southeast market evolution demands analytical tools that can keep pace. At Build, our agentic AI platform synthesizes demographic data, employment trends, supply pipeline tracking, comparable transactions, and infrastructure investment to produce market intelligence that's always current.
For developers and investors evaluating Southeast opportunities, the ability to analyze multiple markets and submarkets simultaneously — with institutional-grade rigor and real-time data — is the difference between capturing growth and chasing it.