John Chang on how remote work has gutted office demand. The vacancy rate jumped from 12% before the pandemic to 17%, making offices the worst-performing commercial real estate sector as workers scattered to suburbs and other cities.
office sector has just been hit hardest. And that's a byproduct of the pandemic and changing behavior. People working from home. When they could work from home, they moved to the suburbs, they moved to a completely different city, they moved to a completely different country and worked from there. So we've seen a real change in the office market. Some cities have been hit harder than others. Definitely major urban hubs have been impacted the most. But absolutely, the office sector faces the most stress. It faces the most change. The vacancy rate was like 12% before the pandemic, and now it's up at 17.
