As a state, Oklahoma sits behind only Texas in the number of active rigs. With so many different shale plays, the activity is dispersed across the entire state. From a real estate perspective, this makes assessing the available opportunity challenging. Towns like Purcell, Cushing and El Reno have all experienced sky rocketing property values, particularly Cushing, often considered the hub for oil storage and trading, and El Reno, the center of Canadian County (Cana Woodford) where 30%+ of active rigs in Oklahoma operate today. Because these markets are in close proximity to a larger metropolitan market like Oklahoma City/Tulsa, the development of new mutli-family, retail and office will be limited.
From an industrial perspective lease rates never jumped through the roof like the Bakken or South Texas. Vacancy rates have remained steady around 9% and rates for flex industrial space sit in the $6-$9 per square foot range. As drilling activity picked up across the last few years, many users were able to retro-fit existing industrial space reducing the need for speculative development and new builds. From a high level, real estate development will be steady and will continue to improve as oil prices rise and stabilize.