Maryland Suburb Growth Drivers Pick Up

FORESTVILLE, MD-A recent spate of leasing and investment sale deals in the Maryland suburbs is raising hopes that activity in secondary markets in the DC area may be on the upswing. Certainly that is the impression local and regional brokers are receiving. “I would describe it this way,” Dean Zang, senior director with Marcus & Millichap’s National Retail Group, tells GlobeSt.com. “The primary market, DC, has been on fire, perhaps all along. The secondary markets are now catching on fire. And the tertiary markets, well, the fire engine is on the way to the scene.”

Zang offers another, more quantifiable way, to chart the improving markets in the areas beyond the District: a retail center recently traded here at a six-and-a-half cap rate. A year ago, Zang says, that deal would have been in the 7s.