➤ Key Highlights
Lab availability fell ~2M SF since mid-2025 — the largest quarterly decline in a decade.
Top-four markets’ demand rose 44% YoY to nearly 8M SF in Q1’26.
Boston, the Bay Area and San Diego still carry ~32% collective vacancy.
Buildings completed since 2020 shed 2.6M SF of availability in nine months.
Pre-2000 lab stock added ~700K SF back to the market over the same span.
➤ The Signal
The sector bottomed — but “bottom” is not “uniform.”
Capital and tenants are concentrating in new, top-tier, primary-market assets.
Secondary markets and aging buildings are being left behind.
After four years of oversupply, the trend finally reversed: availability is shrinking and demand in the core clusters is surging. That is a genuine inflection — the first one biotech real estate has seen since the 2021 peak unwound.
But the recovery is bifurcated, and the split is the story. Demand is rushing into post-2020, primary-market product while pre-2000 buildings keep bleeding space. Tenants with unprecedented leverage are trading up — same rent dollars, far better real estate.
For owners, vintage is now destiny. A 1990s lab in a secondary cluster is not “early-cycle upside” — it is the supply the recovery is structurally bypassing. Basis discipline and building quality decide who participates.
➤ Implications
Expect rents to firm first in Boston, the Bay and San Diego’s newest assets, while concessions persist elsewhere. Conversion or repositioning — not patience — is the play for obsolete lab stock.
➤ Key Takeaway
The lab market turned the corner, but it only sent a rescue boat for the newest buildings.
Source: JLL / CBRE / Bisnow — June 2026
