February was the last month of the record long economic recovery before U.S. office workers were largely asked to work from home, which will likely have long term implications for the national office market, Yardi Matrix reports in this month’s National Office Report. The rapid growth of COVID-19 has made it clear the economy has quickly shifted into contraction mode as the nation reacts to an unprecedented pandemic. “This is a rapidly changing situation with no clear timeframe or conclusion, and as of now it’s unclear how long the shelter-in-place orders, social distancing and moratoriums on public gatherings will last or how deep the economic contraction may become,” states the report. Market experts also suspect that the mandatory work from home restrictions may have long term implications for offices, perhaps changing how feasible and desirable workers view remote work, while potentially having more challenging implications for the coworking industry. Office transactions will likely come to a halt for the time being despite record low interest rates and widening cap rate spreads. For the most part, the office market didn’t enter this situation overbuilt or with loans that are overleveraged. This should help activity resume once the crisis subsides. “Owners may be hesitant to lease space to coworking firms that are themselves dependent on short-term leases. Further, remote workers that had utilized cowork­ing space may find themselves making the home office a permanent one over the next couple of months,” states the report. Yardi Matrix will offer a two upcoming webinars next week on the impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. real estate market. Join the webinar with multifamily focused insight on Wed., April 1 at 10:30am PST. Join the webinar with a commercial real estate focus on Thurs., April 2 at 12:30pm...

A new report from Yardi® Matrix shows that demand for U.S. office space remains strong, with office-using employment sector growth—which, at 1.7% year-over-year, tops overall non-farm employment growth—driving a 0.1% year-over-year street rate increase in August 2019. “Markets with lower-than-average vacancy rates and solid office-using employment growth continue to have the highest rate of year-over-year growth in listing rates,” the report says, citing San Francisco, Tampa, Fla., Nashville, Tenn., and Austin, Texas, as the leaders. Large, expensive spaces entering the market and pushing overall listing rates upward account for much of their increases. Strong fundamentals don’t always produce high listing rate growth, however. For example, two new business centers and 106,253 square feet of available floor space in an existing mall are depressing rates in Orlando, Fla. The metro had the largest decrease in listing rates in August (-5.9%). Chicago, which has shaky fundamentals, had the second-largest (-5.2%). Year-to-date office sales through the end of August totaled $55.2 billion, slightly behind the $60.7 billion registered through the same period last year. Space under construction, 179.1 million square feet, represents 2.9% of stock. The Yardi Matrix national office report for September 2019 has a wealth of information on occupancy trends, supply, office-using employment and more. Download it...

The U.S. office property market stayed on the upswing in July, with asking rates increasing 1.1% year-over-year. Office-using jobs increased 1.7% in the same period, driven by the computer design services portion of the professional business services segment, according to a new national report from Yardi® Matrix.  Additional good news includes a robust late-cycle construction pipeline comprising 174 million square feet of space. That will represent a 2.8% increase in inventory when delivered. Manhattan, N.Y., with 24.2 million square feet, and Boston and San Francisco, with 11.5 million square feet and 10.9 million square feet, respectively, are the leaders in that category. Office space deliveries in the first seven months of 2019 totaled 33.8 million square feet, broken down by central business district (6.5 million square feet), urban (14 million square feet) and suburban areas (13.3 million square feet). Office sales valued at $46.5 billion took place through July, only slightly off last year’s pace. Roiling capital markets haven’t affected demand for office space so far. “Economic growth has been running at an annualized rate of about 2.5%, and fundamentals such as employment and consumer spending remain healthy, so a recession does not appear to be on the immediate horizon,” the report says. Find out what else is happening in the dynamic U.S. office market in the most recent Yardi Matrix national office...

Demand for office space remains strong and the supply pipeline shows continuing strength, according to a national office report from Yardi Matrix. Average asking rates increased 1.7% over the six-month period ending in June 2019, matching office-using employment sectors’ year-over-year growth rate that month. The national vacancy rate was 13.5%, 20 basis points below the previous month. “Demand is robust for higher-quality spaces with more amenities and heftier price tags,” the report says. The report documents 26.5 million square feet of office space delivered in the first half of the year and 174.7 million square feet under construction. Between 60 million and 70 million square feet will likely be delivered over the next two to three years. Putting what appears to be a massive pipeline in perspective, the report observes that “this level of new supply is modest compared to annual pre-recession completions.” Half of all space under construction is in six top gateway markets—Manhattan, N.Y., San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago—plus growing tech markets Seattle, the Bay Area and Austin, Texas. Office sales totaled $38.8 billion through June and “the decline of the 10-year Treasury yield … should continue to act as a catalyst for transactions,” the report says. Orlando, Fla., led all major metros in office-using employment growth as of May, with the bulk of its 5.5% year-over-year increase concentrated in professional and business services. There’s lots more about U.S. office property demand, deliveries, lease rates, construction and sales in the national office report for July...

While industry fundamentals are healthy and the economy is strong, the U.S. office sector faces pressures that could fundamentally alter its business model. Jeff Adler and Jack Kern, vice president and director of institutional research, respectively, for Yardi Matrix, provided an update on a sector in transition in a recent webinar. After a shaky fourth quarter of 2018, the U.S. economy has rebounded into “really good shape,” Adler said, with a rising stock market and inflation that is largely held in check by increased domestic oil production. The labor market is very tight—the best in 50 years, he said—with office-using sectors outpacing overall job and wage growth over the past five years and most markets absorbing available office space. Metros such as Dallas, Houston and Atlanta are growing fast and adding office-using jobs. Other locations with job growth and low unemployment, such as Orlando, Fla., Nashville, Tenn., San Francisco and the nearby Bay Area, have to import workers to meet staffing needs. Most markets still have room to absorb office space. In short, the industry is in a good place, and if the federal government’s pro-growth policies outweigh its anti-growth ones, “the party goes on,” Adler said. So what are the challenges? One of the main secular (long-term) factors is coworking, which pulls 1-3% of market demand from traditional office leases and keeps growing as companies expand beyond their primary locations. The practice is growing everywhere and won’t likely go away anytime soon, Adler said. Per-employee square footage is decreasing, particularly in central business districts and high-cost metros. With a tight labor market, companies are luring talent by making office “an experience-driven sector,” similar to what has happened in retail, incorporating design elements and attractions such as new technology, spaces for relaxation, natural light,...