The industrial warehouse market in Mexico’s Bajío region — comprising the states of Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Jalisco, Zacatecas, Michoacán and San Luis Potosí — saw strong growth in 2024 despite geopolitical tensions threatening nearshoring investments in Mexico.
According to a report by real estate consulting firm CBRE, industrial warehouse occupancy in the region increased by 51% compared to 2023. CBRE’s data shows that the region registered 722,000 square meters of net absorption, primarily driven by land sales transactions and the expansion of companies already established in the Bajío area.
According to data collected by the Mexican real estate data tech agency Datoz, net absorption of warehouse space in el Bajío represented 28.28% of the national total, outpacing other industrial hubs like Mexico’s central, northeast and northwest regions.
“The demand for industrial space by tenants in the automotive and light manufacturing industries continues,” CBRE said. “These sectors represent more than half of the demand [in the Bajío region], and this trend is expected to continue during the first half of 2025.”
Rodrigo Folgueras, the regional vice president of CBRE Mexico, explained that the vacancy rate for industrial warehouses in El Bajío has remained relatively stable, closing at 3.6% at the end of Q4 — slightly lower than the 3.9% vacancy rate recorded at the end of the same period in 2023.
Folgueras estimated that the light manufacturing and automotive industries would continue to demand more industrial space in the region, primarily focusing on Build-to-Suit (BTS) projects. He also noted an upward trend in the asking prices for warehouses, similar to what is occurring in other markets.
Nationwide, the Argentina-based Amazon competitor Mercado Libre emerged as the largest warehouse tenant in 2024, accounting for 11% of total rented square meters in Mexico.
According to Silvia Gómez, an industrial market consultant at Datoz, this positive trend in the industrial real estate market will help mitigate the potential impacts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs on Mexico’s main industrial sectors.
With reports from El Economista, Inmobiliare and Obras Expansión
