ATLANTA—Especially hard hit in the Great Recession, Atlanta is not just making a comeback, but it's posting strong growth on almost every front. Atlanta may be a cyclical market, but its recent run is turning investors' heads.

Consider just a few of the metrics: Atlanta is among the 10 most promising markets, thanks in part to a homebuilding comeback, according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers' Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2015. A diverse economy, low cost of doing business and affordable housing are among the drivers.

“The Atlanta market is attractive to institutional and local investors and developers,” PwC's report reveals. “Local market participants assess the availability of capital and strong local development community as two of the best attributes of the Atlanta market.”

Mike Sivewright, JLL's Atlanta market director, says multifamily assets continue to lead the way from a volume standpoint, and he's seeing record pricing for class A office properties. The assets that are trading either have experienced strong rent growth or have strong repositioning potential, he says, but where do we go from here?

“As the economy matures, investor interest will broaden in terms of assets and geography,” says Sivewright. “As for the year ahead, we could see increased buyer demand in Atlanta for class B industrial properties as well as hotels.”

April Hawkinson, of DTZ in Atlanta, says the city has historically been known to be a key transportation hub for the East Coast, which adds to the appeal. However, she notes, in the past three to five years Atlanta has become a huge market for IT and tech start-up growth companies based on the city's access to talent with top universities, and qualitative lifestyle.

“With the rise in market activity, we will continue to see vacancy rates decrease, rental rates increase, new spec development break ground and a shift from a tenant's market to a landlord's market in the very near future,” Hawkinson says. “As the market turns, tenants will need to begin evaluating their real estate goals sooner in order to find opportunities amongst the competition.”

Most Atlanta commercial real estate industry watchers agree that the city is poised for more growth in 2015. Since the market recovery began, Atlanta has trended well above the US as a whole in year-over-year payroll growth, and the metro area now exceeds its pre-recession peak by 27,400 jobs.

Steve Martin, managing principal at SDM Partners in Atlanta, says if you are just now eyeing Atlanta for industrial development, you are probably late to the game. That's because sites and land are hard to come by and, in almost all cases, are controlled by those plugged into Atlanta and likely already building here.

“If you want to be out in front of what's next in our market, office will be, on a limited basis, the place to play…but be careful. Office development is not for the faint of heart due to the high costs and correspondingly high rents required,” Martin says.

“The issue in the future will not necessarily be overbuilding of office, but lack of demand and/or economic strength. On the other hand, industrial could have supply issues given the amount of construction already underway.”