2026 Mid-Year Review Featured Company: The Geenty Group, Realtors - Commercial Industrial Real Estate

The Geenty Group, Realtors - Commercial Industrial Real Estate
Headquarters: Branford, CT
Founded: 1986
Services: Sales and Leasing Brokerage
States Served: CT 
www.geentygroup.com

What projects, initiatives, or types of work have been keeping your team busiest during the first half of 2026?
2026 has brought a subtle shift in the Connecticut market. Leasing activity in small office suites (1,000-5,000 s/f), which picked up in the second half of 2025 has remained steady, not booming but steady. Industrial leasing has slowed a bit in every asset except contractor spaces (>3,000 s/f) where demand remains high. Retail leasing is strong from Mom & Pop shops to national retail leases - presently dominated by coffee and QSR across the board. The majority of our activity has been investment sales in 2026. Investors are still buying multi-family, industrial and strip centers. Available product remains a challenge. The majority of sales are occurring before marketing goes out to the wide world. Ninety Percent of the properties seen on public information exchanges are already under contract. Brokers are burning up phone lines like it’s the 1980s and that’s how we’re serving our clients too.

What trends or shifts have stood out most to you so far this year within your industry?
Investment opportunities and purchases remain the most positive trend in 2026. House hacking which touches the Commercial market, slightly is a trend that keeps growing with Gen Z. Smaller multi-family properties remain a hot commodity because many younger first-time home buyers are looking for income streams to support their mortgages whether in 2-family homes, ADU’s or small garden apartment complexes. As everyone knows from the news, apartment developments small and large are the drivers of big demand this year. Development land, redevelopment of Commercial Industrial properties from mills to malls is booming and the big news is that Smaller in-fill development 15-30 units is peaking. The “Missing Middle” (duplexes, townhomes, multiplexes, and courtyard apartments) is the housing markets developers’ white whale.

What challenges or opportunities have had the biggest impact on your business during the first half of 2026?
Hesitancy is a forbidden word, but it also creates opportunities for landlords and tenants. Opportunities to refit and freshen existing spaces, renegotiate lease extensions and expand in place which can be a boon to tenants - moving is expensive, time consuming and disruptive. A good broker is a tenant’s ace in the hole for these negotiations. As Connecticut addresses and broadens some of its zoning regulations and environmental regulations, some of the properties previously thought too complex to acquire are now viable opportunities and this is potentially the most interesting news of all.

As we look ahead to the second half of the year, what are you watching most closely?
Connecticut “Sunsetted” the Transfer Act March 1, 2026. Sunsetting the Transfer Act is intended to make selling property more streamlined. We devour news of “Spill Based” regulations as they are put in place. The idea that sellers will no longer need to prove their sites to be free of any soil contamination (even when no spills were reported) is promising for property sales. Another big regulation change affects mixed-use properties, vacant office properties and also industrial properties have received a jump start with a new regulation that supersedes older zoning regulations that will allow 2-9 residential unit additions to these properties “as of right,” with reduced parking minimums, and a ban on local caps on the number of these projects in municipalities. It will be interesting to see these big regulation changes play out.