Four Types of Commercial Real Estate

A commercial real estate developer in the Boston metropolitan area, Michael Snedeker serves as the executive vice president of Elite Building Corp. in Waltham, Massachusetts. Michael Snedeker is a senior executive at a real estate development company with over a decade of experience in the commercial real estate industry.

Investors who want to buy into the commercial real estate market have a myriad of options. Below are the four main types of commercial real estate:

1. Retail — a commercially-zoned property, retail properties include grocery stores, restaurants, and shopping centers, which are almost exclusively used to market or sell products directly to consumers.

2. Industrial — unlike retail properties which are used in the actual selling of products, industrial properties are built to accommodate the manufacture or storage of products or materials. Industrial properties take the form of factories, warehouses, garages, and distribution centers.

3. Office — set aside for businesses, office spaces can be found in single, high-rise, and multi-tenant buildings as well as huge central business district towers. Office spaces commonly house meeting rooms and desk spaces to conduct business functions, such as administration, finance, and accounting.

4. Multi-family complex — categorized as apartment properties, multi-family complexes are residential buildings that sell or lease more than one unit. They can be in the form of high-rise or walk-up buildings, townhomes, or manufactured housing communities.