Cheapest realistic way in when every decent industrial listing is $6M

There are four rungs and they get less passive as they get cheaper, which is the part people skip.

Small bay industrial, sometimes called multi-tenant flex, means a building cut into units of roughly 1,000 to 5,000 sf, each with its own overhead door and a small office. Tenants are contractors, cabinet shops, e-commerce sellers with a van. Individual industrial condo units in secondary markets often sell in the $150,000 to $400,000 range. A whole small building with three to six bays might be $700,000 to $2M.

A single tenant freestanding box, the thing you've been pricing, is where institutional pricing starts and why the number jumps.

Above that, private funds and syndications that buy logistics assets typically set minimums around $25,000 to $100,000. A DST, or Delaware statutory trust, is a passive fractional ownership structure often used to complete a 1031 exchange, and interests in one are securities sold through licensed representatives with suitability and accreditation requirements attached, so that's a conversation with a licensed professional rather than a forum. Industrial REITs sit at the bottom of the ladder in dollar terms since you can buy one share.

The trade you're making by going cheap is the lease. Eight small bay tenants on three-year leases with no credit, personal guarantees and monthly calls is a job. One tenant on a 12-year net lease is close to the passive picture you're describing. Owning either takes no license, though if you ever manage space for other owners the licensing question turns on your state's real estate rules.

The small bay math looks fine until the overhead doors start going. Torsion spring and cable replacement is $400 to $700 a door and it never happens at 2pm, it happens when a tenant can't get his van out at 6am. Budget management at 5 to 6 percent of collections on multi-tenant, against 2 to 3 percent on a single tenant net deal. And if you're sourcing yourself, a CoStar or Crexi subscription is real money, low four figures a month for the good market coverage, which is hard to justify against one $300k unit.