Remarks last week by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell about a spate of coming bank failures related to the faltering commercial real estate sector have sent shockwaves through the financial world, leading some investors to run for cover and others to look for opportunities.
With the typical U.S. commercial lease ranging from three to five years, the clock is ticking for office and retail property owners and their creditors in the financial sector as remote work has taken off and prompted changes in urban land use.
Office vacancy rates have climbed sharply in the wake of the pandemic after falling steadily in the decade before, reaching a record 13.1 percent last year, according to data from the Treasury Department’s Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), citing analytics firm CoStar.
“At the midpoint of the third quarter of 2023, the national office vacancy rate hit a record high of 13.2 percent, a full 370 basis points higher than at the end of 2019,” CoStar analyst Phil Mobley wrote in a third-quarter analysis.