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Median retail vacancy runs at 4.8% across the top fifteen US investment markets, against 16.0% for offices.
Same year, same fifteen markets, two very different pictures. Across the fifteen highest-scoring investment markets in this year's U.S. commercial property data, median retail vacancy runs at 4.8%, while median office vacancy sits at 16.0%, more than three times higher. The most instructive number in the data is not a price or a rent. It is that gap between two sectors of the same commercial property market.
The figures come from a Realmo study of 100 U.S. cities, scored on ZIP-area population growth, 2025 vacancy, commercial asking rents and modeled cap rates. The listing snapshot dates to October 8, 2026; vacancy figures are annual 2025 values; population data covers 2020–2023. Before you read on, know what this ranking is and isn't. It covers commercial listings (office, retail, industrial, multifamily), and its figures are asking prices and asking rents, not closed deals. Read it as a screen for where the market is tight and where the yield lives, not as a valuation. More U.S. commercial property data is on the market analysis pages.
The yield story: look north, not at the coasts
Minneapolis tops the ranking with a Growth Signal Score of 75.7, and the reason is visible in one figure: a modeled cap rate of 8.5% against a U.S. median of 6.1%. Retail vacancy of 4.4% and industrial of 4.7% give it the second-best vacancy score of the 48 scored cities, while its median commercial asking price of $169 per square foot sits barely above the $151 national benchmark. Tight space, modest entry price, and the highest modeled yield in the top fifteen – a combination the gateway markets cannot currently offer.
Pittsburgh makes the income case even more cleanly. Its median asking rent of $26.00 per square foot per year against a median asking price of $129 produces the best rent-to-price ratio in the top fifteen, and its 7.8% modeled cap rate ranks third. The trade-off is growth: ZIP-area population expanded just 1.2% in 2020-2023, trailing the 1.5% U.S. figure. This is the classic yield-versus-growth split, and the data draws it sharply.
The opposite end of that trade is Nashville. The city posts the tightest vacancy of all 48 scored markets – retail at 3.7%, industrial at 4.5% – and ZIP-area population growth of 3.0%, eighth-fastest. Yet its modeled cap rate of 3.2% is the lowest in the top fifteen and 47th of 48 cities. Its median commercial asking price of $338 per square foot, compared with $151 nationally, illustrates the higher entry costs investors face in a market with relatively low vacancy.
That tension is also reflected in the data. Rent strength and modeled cap rate show a negative correlation of −0.58 across the dataset, suggesting that markets with stronger asking rents often have lower modeled cap rates. Of the fifteen leading cities, only five clear the U.S. median cap rate of 6.1%: Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Kansas City at 8.2%, Omaha at 6.6%, and El Paso at 6.3%.
The sector divergence is the real headline
Retail records the lowest 2025 vacancy in ten of the top fifteen cities, industrial in four. Office is the emptiest sector in twelve of the fourteen cities with city-level office data. Office vacancy remains substantially higher than retail vacancy across many of the leading markets: Austin pairs the third-fastest population growth (3.5%) with the top fifteen's highest office vacancy at 29.0%, while Charlotte's 3.4% retail vacancy coexists with 24.6% office vacancy.
The outliers deserve attention precisely because they're outliers. Savannah posts the lowest office vacancy of the 46 cities with city-level data at 3.1%. Omaha's industrial vacancy of 2.5% is the lowest of 42 scored markets. El Paso carries the second-lowest office vacancy at 9.3% alongside a 6.3% modeled cap rate. None of these are the markets international capital names first, which is rather the point of a screen like this.
The geographic rotation
Nine of the top fifteen cities sit in the South, three in the Midwest, two in the West, one in the Northeast. The state-level data is blunter: all ten leading states – Alabama first with a score of 76.8 and a median asking price of $92 per square foot against $151 nationally – are in the South or Midwest. The West Coast states and seven of the nine Northeast states score below the median state.
The gateway underperformance is stark. Chicago ranks 24th of 48 scored cities, Los Angeles 30th, San Francisco 44th. New York was not scored at all – its vacancy data exists only as regional figures, which is itself a reminder of how these models depend on data granularity. Meanwhile Miami illustrates the screen's more unusual profile: the highest asking rents in the top fifteen at $30.27 per square foot and the lowest retail vacancy at 2.7%, alongside the only population decline in the group, −1.1%. High asking rents and tight retail availability contrast with declining ZIP-area population, highlighting the different signals investors must weigh in Miami.
The caveats, because they matter
Asking rents are not signed leases, and asking prices are not closed prices. Several medians rest on thin samples – Nashville's rent figure draws on just 26 priced lease listings, Sacramento's on 21 – and are flagged as directional accordingly. The score is also weight-sensitive: under equal weights, Minneapolis holds first place but Nashville drops from third to eighteenth. Financing costs, taxes, insurance, and employment sit outside the model entirely. Investors should treat the ranking as an initial screening tool rather than a substitute for detailed market research and due diligence.
The takeaway
The investment story in U.S. commercial property this year is not simply "buy growth" or "buy yield" – it's that the two do not always align, and investors must weigh them separately. Some fast-growing markets offer tighter space and higher entry costs, while several Midwest and other less prominent markets, including Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Omaha, stand out for their modeled income potential. And running beneath both is the sector split that keeps asserting itself – retail and industrial space scarcer than offices in nearly every market that matters. For investors, the findings underscore the importance of evaluating growth, income potential, and sector-specific conditions separately rather than treating U.S. commercial real estate as a single market.
