Newmark has hired broker Kevin Hatcher to boost its industrial real estate practice in the San Francisco Bay Area as stakeholders aim to reverse the ripple effects of tech industry cuts that have curtailed the sector in recent months.
The New York-based real estate services firm said it aimed to accelerate the growth of its industrial practice across the region as well as in other West Coast markets. Hatcher joins the company as an executive managing director after an eight-year stint at CBRE, where he was a senior vice president based in Oakland. He specialized in industrial leasing, investment sales and land sales in the East Bay and North Bay markets.
“Kevin is well-respected, understands both occupier and landlord trends and has extensive experience with leasing and sales,” said Jon Mackey, Newmark’s Northwest market leader, in a statement.
In an email to CoStar News, Hatcher acknowledged that “2025 has been a very challenging operating environment for industrial investors, developers, and occupiers.”
Leasing activity in the East Bay’s industrial market remains quiet in the fourth quarter. The slowdown, triggered by higher interest rates beginning in 2023, has resulted in yearly industrial leasing volumes that matched the trough seen during the Great Recession, according to CoStar research.
“The Bay Area industrial market is in the final phase of a post-pandemic reset,” Hatcher said. He predicted that next year would see the market begin to stabilize. “The region’s dominant technology sector continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience, and new industrial supply is rapidly diminishing as construction starts have tapered off.”
Leasing, sales solutions in San Francisco
Hatcher has completed 750 transactions worth more than $6 billion during his career, representing such institutional industrial owners as Prologis, Link Logistics and Ares, as well as tenants such as Home Depot and UPS.
At CBRE, Hatcher oversaw leasing for the Pinole Point portfolio in Richmond, California, part of an 80-acre bayfront development that once housed a shuttered Bethlehem Steel factory before it was redeveloped about a decade ago.
CoStar’s national industry projections released last month said that despite the return of positive leasing demand in the third quarter of this year, the near-term U.S. industrial outlook remains consistent with the previous forecast, which projected a rise in vacancy rates through 2026 and a fourth consecutive year of moderating demand.
The national industrial vacancy rate increased to 7.5% in the third quarter — its highest level in over a decade — and is expected to peak at 7.9% in the third quarter of 2026. Leasing demand is still expected to stay positive in 2025 but remains 50% below 2024 levels, with rent growth near 13-year lows at an average of 1% for the year.
Hatcher has been advising owners, developers and occupiers of industrial real estate since 2008. Newmark noted that he also brings a background in fixed income sales and trading through a stint at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York and San Francisco, experience that informs his “analytical approach to portfolio optimization and capital deployment.” In his new position, Hatcher will collaborate with Newmark’s regional and national industrial leasing teams as well as those focused on capital markets and occupier solutions.
He majored in political science at the University of California at Berkeley, where he played on the Cal rugby and golf teams. He is a founding member of the Rugby Opportunity Fund, a support group for at-risk youth.