Market Insights

Coldwell Banker Commercial recently published As the Industrial Supply Wave Slows, the Conversation Is Shifting to Operational Utility, which says tenants now care less about square footage and more about what a building can do for their operation. We're seeing the same thing in Rock County.

Coldwell Banker Commercial McGuire Mears & Associates’ relationship with Rose Pointe Center dates back to approximately 2010, when Senior Associate Mandy Witt began marketing available space in the property for lease. Over the years, the owners carefully maintained the 9,650-square-foot, multi-tenant property at 4407 Milton Avenue in Janesville. Even after relocating to Florida, they remained actively involved monitoring the building remotely and returning regularly to inspect the property and visit with tenants.

In reviewing the Rock Ready Index for Q1 and Q2 Coldwell Banker Commercial McGuire Mears & Associates managing broker Adam Shultz echoes many of the findings and believes we seeing a bit of a bifurcated real estate market.

Data centers are creating new conversations in communities across Wisconsin. Questions about power, water, noise, infrastructure, land use and long-term impacts are prompting some communities to consider new regulations and, in some cases, temporary moratoriums. Those are fair questions. Large developments should be evaluated carefully. But they also raise a broader question for economic development: How much should be decided before a developer arrives, and how much should be evaluated when there is an actual project on the table?

Coldwell Banker Commercial just published a piece on why institutional capital is rotating back toward garden-style apartment communities after a decade of chasing luxury high-rise towers. Worth reading in full but worth translating for our market, too, because the trend they're describing nationally is basically a description of what South-Central Wisconsin has been building for fifty years.

If you've been reading this column for a while, you know I usually pick one property type and dig in. This month I'm doing something different, because the more I looked at the numbers across Janesville and Beloit, the more one theme kept showing up: absorption has been strong across the board. But "strong absorption" and "tight supply" aren't the same thing, and depending on what you're looking for, the market tells a different story.

AI-driven office leasing is fueling a fragile recovery in major gateway markets like Manhattan, San Francisco and Boston, where AI firms are driving a significant share of recent demand. Coldwell Banker Commercial examines whether this surge represents a sustainable shift in commercial real estate or a concentrated, venture-backed cycle that could introduce new risk for office investors and landlords.

Rising pressure on U.S. farm operators is opening the door to new institutional investment in one of the nation’s largest and most fragmented real asset markets. As generational turnover accelerates and land values hold steady, agricultural real estate is gaining traction as a scalable, long-term play with broader implications for development.

U.S. shopping malls are entering a new phase of reinvention as experience-driven retail reshapes the sector. Driven by Gen Z foot traffic and demand for in-person engagement, leading properties are evolving into mixed-use, lifestyle destinations that blend retail, dining, entertainment, and community space. This shift highlights a growing divide across the market—while top-tier assets are adapting and attracting renewed interest, lower-tier properties continue to face headwinds.

It’s not shocking to me to see Texas at the top of the corporate investment list for multiple years in a row as their business friendly policies continue to drive investment and a strong labor pool provides the necessary bodies to keep growth churning