Filtered by Subscriptions: US Commercial Property Use setting US Commercial Property
On the back of deeply negative office absorption last year and the continued flow of announcements from firms cutting their office space, we have made major revisions to our demand forecasts across our five-year horizon. The total drop in occupied space …
10th March 2021
Greater availability, lower prices and proximity to NYC have supported demand for Boston apartments during the pandemic. That implies demand may edge back as the country reopens, and some workers return to NYC. Rental growth is therefore likely to …
5th March 2021
A few weeks ago, we nudged up our Treasury yield forecasts for year-end 2021 and 2022, to 1.5% and 1.75% respectively. While intra-day yields exceeded 1.6% at one point last week, we don’t expect a continuation of those rises this year. And the bigger …
4th March 2021
In light of our latest long-term economic and financial market forecasts, we have revisited our views for commercial property performance over the next three decades. We think that average returns will be lower than in the recent past, but that property …
1st March 2021
Permanent increases in certain types of online sales will mean that regional and super-regional malls underperform the other retail sub-sectors for at least the next two years. Our forecasts point to another 12%-14% of capital value falls in 2021-22 for …
23rd February 2021
The performance of the major FTSE NAREIT sub-sectors since the end of 2019 appears to suggest that our forecasts for 2021 might be too weak for industrial and too strong for the office and apartments sectors. But while we expect to upgrade our industrial …
10th February 2021
In our Future of Property research, we identified important post-pandemic shifts in most real estate sectors. How these trends interact will be key to the outlook for the urban locations where most real estate is clustered. We think it is premature to …
4th February 2021
The limited impact of the virus on New York City office construction means that we now expect at least 10mn sq. ft. of office space to be added across 2022-23. This could cause the vacancy rate to climb by 400-500 bps in the next three years. As a result, …
2nd February 2021
We expect the boost in demand for life science product will support Boston’s office market. At the same time, office-to-lab conversions will limit the impact of a relatively large development pipeline, reducing the downside for Boston in the coming years. …
27th January 2021
Leisure and hospitality re-openings were behind the strongest job growth in the Autumn, although national data for December suggest that this could be reversed on the back of renewed lockdowns. With the sector still well short of previous peaks, we think …
22nd January 2021
Many commentators are arguing that firms will shift towards a “hub and spoke” model following the pandemic. But we think the arguments for this approach are not as strong as they first seem, and that other strategies will dominate in the years ahead. The …
12th January 2021
For 2021 we highlight five key calls. In particular we expect a year of two halves in which yields initially rise, but end 2021 close to their current levels. Retail and office rent falls will accelerate and while regional mall returns are expected to be …
6th January 2021
The pandemic – and the associated increase in working from home – may cause a fundamental shift in the way that cities function in future. But this shift will not necessarily trigger a more fundamental economic decline in the world’s largest urban …
5th January 2021
The hotel sector has been hit hardest by the virus, and we expect its recovery will be slower than the other sectors. And, even when vaccines pave the way for an improvement in occupancy, structural changes to demand may limit a return to former glories. …
22nd December 2020
As the country begins to return normal next year, the hardest hit apartment markets in the country will recover. New York City looks particularly well-placed to benefit from returning non-office-based workers. Combined with aggressive rent cuts, which …
16th December 2020
Our upcoming Outlook will detail major upgrades to our capital value expectations. Rather than a total fall of around 10% at the all-property level, we now expect the cumulative decline to be just 5%. In mid-November we published an Update which noted a …
3rd December 2020
News about a vaccine has boosted financial markets and we have revised up our global economic expectations for the next two years or so. But while we think that this bodes well for the medium term, next year is still likely to be tough for most property …
2nd December 2020
Rising rental vacancy rates in large cities have not been accompanied by a surge in first-time buyers (FTBs). Indeed, 2020 saw the lowest share of FTBs since 1987. That implies many of those rental households who left large cities are either renting in …
18th November 2020
Third quarter data make it look increasingly likely that our year-end price forecasts will prove to be too negative. However, with the UK still on course for a capital value fall of close to 10% this year, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the US or …
12th November 2020
Cities with a large tourism sector, such as Las Vegas and Orlando, still employ 10% fewer people than they did in February, which will hurt retail spending and apartment demand. And, while office-using jobs are holding up in tech-led cities, these have …
10th November 2020
The volume of available sublease space already exceeds that seen in the last two downturns. And an average discount of 20% to landlord asking rents, rising to 30%-plus in some cities, will reduce the demand for available landlord space. As a result, while …
4th November 2020
Outstanding commercial real estate debt held by banks is likely to rise again in the coming months, providing the improvement in investment transactions seen in September continues. Yet even if there were renewed lockdowns, the deferral of loan payments …
22nd October 2020
The industrial sector could see a further increase in its share of investment in the coming quarters thanks to both its own resilience and concerns surrounding the other sectors. Those diverging prospects are likely to mean that the negative yield gap …
19th October 2020
Upgrades to 2020, but consensus more downbeat on 2021-22 Consensus forecasts for this year have been revised upwards, although the outlook for total returns remains negative. At the same time, the prospects for 2021-22 have been downgraded, but only …
14th October 2020
While Joe Biden is currently favourite to win the election, we don’t think the winner’s identity will have a major effect on the economy. We also don’t expect it to substantially alter the prospects for the asset class as, in either case, monetary policy …
7th October 2020
While we continue to think that this year’s property downturn will be milder than in past cycles, next year’s recovery is looking more fragile. This in part reflects revisions to our economic view, but also structural changes which are weighing on the …
1st October 2020
Commercial property has outperformed both Treasuries and equities in the last two decades, but the fast-forward of structural change caused by COVID-19 will mean that in the next decade property is again likely to underperform equities. Over the last two …
25th September 2020
Low utilisation of office space supports our expectations of weak short-term demand. And, despite some firms raising concerns over productivity as the current remote work “experiment” continues, there are good reasons to think that these will not have a …
23rd September 2020
In contrast to the surge in mortgage forbearance following the CARES Act, we doubt the recently announced eviction ban will trigger a jump in rental arrears. For those who can afford it, deciding not to pay the rent still comes with significant costs. …
4th September 2020
Commercial real estate transactions are on course to fall by nearly 50% this year, despite a strong Q1. And with the latest data hinting that our downside scenario is now looking more likely, volumes could still end next year 40% lower than before the …
3rd September 2020
Retail malls are set to fare badly in this downturn as Americans avoid enclosed spaces and adopt online shopping practices. But regional and super-regional malls, which were already underperforming before the outbreak as tenants shuttered stores and …
28th August 2020
Given uncertainty around the level of adoption of remote-working, change in space allocated per worker and how large any reduction in supply might be, we provide a set of potential scenarios for the change in required office space and the effect on …
24th August 2020
We expect office-based employment growth to be faster than total employment growth by around 0.3-0.5% ppts each year over the next decade in the US, the UK and the euro-zone. The coronavirus crisis will dampen the outlook in the short run, but the less …
4th August 2020
Despite the stronger-than-expected rebound in US high street sales, retail property still faces greater uncertainty than any other commercial sector. Not only does the upsurge in virus cases present a renewed near-term risk, but the inexorable rise in …
23rd July 2020
Debt covenants generally look less stretched in this downturn than during the GFC. And, although interest cover ratios are relatively low in some REIT sub-sectors, the short, sharp, fall in capital values that we are forecasting means that it is unlikely …
16th July 2020
Global property markets are expected to see a lasting impact from the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. Over the coming weeks, we will publish a series of pieces looking at the post-pandemic future across the main property types. We start this by …
15th July 2020
CMBS delinquencies have risen sharply in recent months, yet we aren’t expecting a repeat of the real estate debt meltdown witnessed in the GFC. However, non-performing loan rates are especially high in the retail and lodging sectors, meaning that holders …
8th July 2020
We expect real estate yields to spike this year due to both a rise in the property risk premium and lower expectations for property income streams. However, breaking down the observed yield gap into rental predictions and the risk premium has more than …
2nd July 2020
The hit to apartment absorption from the coronavirus has occurred at the same time as a large number of new units are set to enter the market. Even with current tenants staying put, that raises the risk of a spike in the vacancy rate. However, …
1st July 2020
The factors that drove the resurgence in home purchase mortgage demand, including record low mortgage rates, the need for more space and the anticipation of finding a bargain, will not give a similar boost to apartment rental demand. Low interest rates …
11th June 2020
As US states emerge from lockdown and the worst of the economic crisis appears to be over, thoughts are turning to the recovery. In this, not all parts of the US will be equal. Some insight into the resilience of markets can be gained by looking at …
5th June 2020
In a world in which central banks and governments are likely to ensure that sovereign bond yields stay low for the long-term, real estate is well-placed to benefit. Therefore, although we expect property yields to rise this year, we still expect …
4th June 2020
The partial recovery in REIT prices since their late March trough gives further support to our view that all-property capital value falls will not exceed 10% this year. But, with data centres, single-family homes and self-storage outperforming in recent …
29th May 2020
Consensus downgrades suggest a more downbeat mood Forecasts for all indicators in 2020 have shown a marked deterioration since the interim year-end 2019 forecast published in January. While the consensus sector ranking is in line with our March forecasts, …
21st May 2020
Our initial expectations that office landlords would see only a limited and short-lived fall in occupier demand have given way to a growing likelihood of a more adverse outlook. We have therefore downgraded our forecast for rent growth this year from …
13th May 2020
In light of the pandemic, our forecasts for developed market commercial property returns have been revised lower. Nevertheless, the relativities between the key markets are broadly unchanged, meaning that we still expect the US to outperform the UK and …
6th May 2020
Relative to its performance in the GFC, the office sector should be fairly resolute in this downturn. However, the rapid growth of flexible office space poses a downside risk in some markets. What’s more, if the problems facing WeWork were to turn into a …
27th April 2020
Jobless claims have reached 26 million, but by the end of last week the share of apartment tenants making a full or partial rental payment in April was down by just four percentage points compared to usual. That demonstrates tenants are still incentivised …
24th April 2020
After a decade of relatively cautious real estate lending and steady, rather than stunning, economic growth, office development has remained fairly subdued. What’s more, for both practical and economic reasons, we see completions dropping back in the next …
16th April 2020
The nearly 40% peak-to-trough fall in US REIT prices points to a fall of around 5%-10% in direct real estate capital values, providing this proves to be a relatively short-lived recession. At a sector level, deeper falls for the retail sub-sector REITs …
8th April 2020