Vacancy in Carson has jumped this year as a wave of large tenants moved out faster than new leases could replace them. Sales activity, meanwhile, has picked back up from its 2023 lows, though volume is still running below where it stood a few years ago. Here's a rundown of where the submarket stands heading into the back half of 2026.
Carson's industrial vacancy rate reached 7.8% in the third quarter of 2026, its highest mark in well over a decade and far above the roughly 3% vacancy the submarket has averaged over the past ten years. The driver is a string of large move-outs — several buildings over 100,000 square feet came back on the market, concentrated along the Dominguez St corridor, and pushed net absorption to negative 302,000 square feet over the trailing 12 months. Available space now makes up 8.0% of the submarket. Owners sitting on space right now, particularly larger blocks, should be thinking hard about pricing and marketing before more competing space hits the market — happy to talk through leasing strategy for a specific property.
Some of that newly vacated space has already come back on the market at lower rents, with owners generally pricing in the $1.25 to $1.45 per square foot per month range on a triple-net basis. There's been backfilling — Custom Goods signed a 221,000-square-foot lease in late 2025 that was one of the larger deals of the year — but not enough of it to offset everything that came vacant. Among the busiest larger buildings in the submarket over the past year, Dominguez Distribution Center on E Dominguez St leased up 261,500 square feet across two transactions, and Portside Logistics Center on E 223rd St added a 134,114-square-foot deal.
Asking rents in Carson currently average around $1.41 per square foot per month, which puts the submarket roughly in line with the rest of Los Angeles. That's still down about 30% from where available-space pricing peaked in 2023, and rents overall are down 4.1% from a year ago. Tenants who signed during the run-up in 2021 and 2022 are still paying well above today's market, which is part of why in-place rent levels remain elevated even as new leases get signed at a discount. The expectation going forward is for rents to level off before climbing again, with Carson's limited developable land and proximity to the ports supporting that longer-term case.
There's not much new supply coming to Carson, and that's mostly by geography — the submarket is dense and largely built out, so most new construction actually replaces older buildings rather than adding net square footage. Over the last ten years, roughly 1.3 million square feet has been delivered, but the net gain to total inventory was only about 260,000 square feet once older product came down. Brookfield finished a 429,112-square-foot building on E Dominguez St in mid-2025, and a smaller 127,775-square-foot project on Sandhill Ave delivered the year before. Right now there's just one building underway — 129,295 square feet at 2104 E 223rd St, due to wrap up in August 2026 — with a second, larger project proposed nearby.
Even the newest buildings haven't been immune to the slowdown. At Portside Logistics Center, one of three buildings finished in 2023 sat empty until late 2025 before finding a tenant, a sign that developers are having to work harder to land deals at the rents they originally underwrote.
Sales volume in Carson climbed to $128 million in 2024 and held around $120 million in 2025 — activity that's recovering but still hasn't caught up to the broader national rebound, largely because local vacancy and rents haven't fully stabilized yet. Institutional buyers and REITs have historically driven half of all acquisition volume here over the past decade, with private capital accounting for another third and owner-users making up the rest. Cap rates on institutional-quality deals in Los Angeles are generally landing around 5.5% right now.
One deal from late last year captures the pricing story well: Brookfield sold a 150,000-square-foot warehouse at 1925 E Dominguez St to an owner-user, Fujitrans, for $47 million — $313 per square foot. Brookfield had bought that same building back in 2021 for $40.4 million, or $269 per square foot, at a 3.8% cap rate while it was leased to a logistics tenant. Looking at comparable sales over the past year more broadly, Carson has seen 26 trades averaging $268 per square foot, with buildings selling at an average vacancy of 7.3%. A more recent example: a 90,500-square-foot building on Sandhill Ave sold for $23 million, or $254 per square foot, this past July.
None of this points to a structural problem with Carson — it looks more like a market working through an unusually heavy stretch of move-outs. The long-term case hasn't changed: limited land for new development and a location close to the ports should keep Carson performing well once leasing demand catches back up. If you're an owner trying to figure out what your property is worth in today's market, or thinking through timing on a sale, a complimentary Broker Opinion of Value is a good place to start.
Q: What is the current industrial vacancy rate in Carson?
A: Vacancy in Carson's industrial market reached 7.8% in the third quarter of 2026, well above the roughly 3% average the submarket has held over the past decade.
Q: Are industrial rents in Carson rising or falling?
A: Rents have softened, down 4.1% from a year ago to an average of around $1.41 per square foot per month. Pricing on available space is down roughly 30% from where it peaked in 2023, though rents are expected to level off before resuming growth.
Q: Is there new industrial construction happening in Carson?
A: Very little. Carson is dense and largely built out, with only one building currently under construction — 129,295 square feet at 2104 E 223rd St, expected to finish in August 2026.
Q: What are current cap rates for industrial properties in Carson?
A: Institutional-quality industrial deals in Los Angeles are generally trading around a 5.5% cap rate. A notable recent Carson sale closed at $313 per square foot in November 2025.
Q: Is now a good time to sell an industrial property in Carson?
A: It depends on the property and the owner's goals. With vacancy up and rents softer near-term, a current Broker Opinion of Value is a useful starting point for owners weighing a sale or planning a 1031 exchange. A Broker Opinion of Value is a market estimate, not a formal appraisal — owners pursuing a refinance will need an appraisal from a licensed appraiser as part of the lender's underwriting process.
Market data sourced from CoStar Group, licensed to Lee & Associates.
We specialize in industrial real estate from the greater Los Angeles to the Inland Empire markets, including: Long Beach, Carson, Torrance, Gardena, Compton, Rancho Dominguez, Wilmington, Paramount, Santa Fe Springs, Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Irwindale, Signal Hill, Pomona, City of Industry, and Ontario, serving surrounding submarkets including LA South Bay, LA Central, Mid-Counties, San Gabriel Valley, Orange County and the Inland Empire.
Ron Mgrublian
Principal, Lee & Associates Los Angeles – Long Beach
CalDRE# 01902882
