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Commercial Real Estate

Commercial Real Estate Demand Is On The Rise Throughout The US 

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According to a new index from the National Association of Realtors, a multitude of markets throughout the US are showing an increased demand for commercial real estate throughout the country. 

South Carolina, in particular, ranked the highest among all US states in future potential demand for commercial real estate. The National Association of Realtors works to provide a clear vision for investors throughout America when it comes to pursuing their next big venture. The data they report utilizes figures from local economies and past patterns to predict future demand. 

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This specific index looks at over 300 metropolitan markets, analyzing office, industrial, retail, and multifamily sectors while measuring the economic conditions within each region, CNBC reports. 

Government data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau for population and movement also helped inform the rankings. The office sector looked at growth in professional and business services employment. For industrial they looked at manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing employment growth. 

The NAR also measures growth in retail trade along with leisure and hospitality employment. In the multifamily sector, they incorporated population growth and net migration domestically and internationally. 

“It doesn’t say, ‘OK, go there and just buy property,’ but it says … where the data shows that the momentum is building, the demand is building,” Nadia Evangelou, principal economist and director of real estate research at NAR, said. 

The association also compared those selected markets to 2022, which is considered the peak of the pandemic migration boom. According to the index, out of all the markets analyzed, Raleigh, North Carolina is the only major one that is stronger today than it was in 2022. 

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Austin, Texas, Miami and Naples, Florida, once considered to be “superhot” markets, have all declined within the market within the past four years. 

Within the index the strongest metropolitan market is St. George, Utah due to their office employment growth. 

“It also has very strong population growth and in-migration, and its industrial demand is above average,” Evangelou said. 

“So St. George, for example, is the No. 1, because one industry happened to have a good year, so there is a broader momentum over there.”

Evangelou also said that small and midsized markets could provide some of the best opportunities for investors. 

The index also broke down where each of the four sectors is seeing their strongest demand, which includes Salem, Oregon and Fairbanks, Alaska. 

“When we take a look at New York, San Francisco and the big coastal markets, we see that the large markets are still generally weaker than the fast-growing Sunbelt and smaller markets in this index,” said Evangelou.

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International Luxury Real Estate Icon, Sarkie Ampim, Gives His Audience A Look Into The Industry 

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Sarkie Ampim is a well known figure in the international luxury real estate industry. Besides his influence throughout the market itself, he also has amassed a worldwide audience of over 100,000 followers between TikTok and Instagram. He utilizes his online presence to give individuals a true look into the life of a realtor serving luxury clients in places like London, the US, and West Africa. 

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Ampim recently spoke to USA Today about his specific approach to different markets around the world and how he utilizes social media to let his followers know about the inner workings of the multitude of real estate markets he works in. 

“You have to understand culture without losing local nuance. Trust looks different in every market. The way you earn it differs, but integrity is universal.”

To navigate the many markets and wide range of clientele Ampim works with, he knows that specificity is key. He stated that trying to deliver a universal message and technique as an agent will end up backfiring, because every client is different and has varying needs. 

Ampim prides himself in his ability to create personalized plans and strategies for every client, making him an authentic figure in real estate. 

Through Coldwell Banker Warburg, Ampim works on high-profile commercial properties, exclusive developments with first-time buyers, seasoned investors, and high-net-worth clients, according to USA Today. 

Sarkie is originally from Ghana and was raised in both England and the US. Initially, his career began in Brooklyn, NY as a Commercial Real Estate Agent. He quickly developed skills and techniques in property transactions and the market, solidifying a long lasting client base.

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“Real estate moves quickly in New York, and Ghana is catching up fast. Both markets are full of energy, culture, and opportunity. You just have to know how to navigate them.”

“I’ve always been fascinated by the way people live, how culture, design, and opportunity connect,” he said.

Sarkie moved into finance at Belstar Capital where he focused on project finance for infrastructure development in emerging markets. He then was able to gain global fluency in urban growth.

However, Sarkie always craved the world of real estate, so he eventually went back full-time to work at the boutique firm Batra Group, where he became very well known for his work as a Commercial and Residential Agent. 

“It’s about honoring where people come from and where they want to go next. I see myself as a bridge.”

“I’m passionate about bridging the gap between the U.S. and Ghana,” Sarkie Ampim says when discussing looking towards the future.

“There’s so much opportunity, and it’s filled with culture. Real estate is one of the most powerful ways to connect the diaspora.”

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What To Expect From Commercial Real Estate In 2025

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The office sector of commercial real estate struggled in 2024, and with an evolving economy in the US, 2025 could mark a new leaf for the industry, or could continue with the trends of the past year.

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How The US Housing Market Is Reacting To 2024 Remote Work Trends

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The Covid-19 pandemic left America with a new standard of working. Many businesses and individuals not only started working remotely due to quarantine regulations, but continued to do so after quarantine was over. Now, experts in the real estate industry are discussing how the housing market is adapting to these work trends.

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Empty Bed Bath & Beyond Stores Are Hot Commercial Real Estate Opportunities

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Commercial real estate retailers are seeing a major rise in available spaces due to the influx of empty Bed Bath & Beyond stores. 

When superstore retailers go out of business, other companies have the chance to take over the space for a faster turnaround due to its larger size. For example, Burlington Stores CEO Micheal O’Sullivan stated that some of their best stores were created “from carved-up Kmart or Sears locations.”

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Burlington has also already taken over 44 former Bed Bath & Beyond locations. According to CNN, this is the first holiday season in more than 50 years where there won’t be any physical Bed Bath & Beyond stores. The chain went out of business earlier this year, and closed its last 360 stores in what’s been referred to as the largest retail bankruptcies in years; 120 buybuy BABYs also closed down.

Overstock.com bought the Bed Bath & Beyond brand and transitioned it to relaunch exclusively online. The relaunch also included the famous 20% off coupons from the former retail giant. 

As the hundreds of empty Bed Bath & Beyond stores are continuously being auctioned off, the industry has realized how valuable these spaces are for real estate opportunities. 

According to CNN, Burlington, Michaels, Barnes & Noble, Macy’s, Homegoods, and many other chains have already replaced old Bed Bath & Beyond stores. Some of the vacant spaces have even been taken over by recreational services such as pickleball courts, bowling alleys, and trampoline parks. 

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While the retail industry itself has been slowing down as of late, the vacant Bed Bath & Beyond locations are a hot ticket item for retailers and other developers due to an overall lack of big box store spaces to move into. In fact, there hasn’t been a major increase in new retail spaces since the financial crisis in 2008, CNN reports, especially with the rise in online shopping. 

“Bed Bath & Beyond spaces have been grabbed up swiftly at rents of up to 50% what Bed Bath & Beyond was paying. Landlords are taking advantage of the vacancies, with some dividing former Bed Bath spaces into smaller sizes,” said Brandon Isner, CBRE’s head of retail research for the Americas.

“There is little to no concern that any of the spaces will go vacant for long,” he said.

Kimco Realty, a real estate owner with 26 former Bed Bath & Beyond leases, said that “new leases were 38% higher than Bed Bath & Beyond rents.” 

“We have a very strong real estate team that has a lot of experience dealing with retail bankruptcies,” Burlington CEO Michael O’Sullivan said. “Many of our most successful and productive stores today were once upon a time Circuit City, Toys R Us, Sports Authority, Linens ’N Things.”

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Bed Bath & Beyond Files For Bankruptcy, Closing Hundreds Of Stores 

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Bed Bath & Beyond announced Sunday that it filed for bankruptcy, stating that they will be closing its remaining 360 Bed Bath & Beyond stores and 120 buybuy Baby locations. Within the past year the company has closed around 400 stores.  

Chain department stores such as TJ Maxx and HomeGoods have begun deals to take over the retail spaces, as well as gyms. The vast spaces of Bed Bath & Beyond stores offer a unique opportunity for commercial real estate. 

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“E-commerce scared a lot of people off from building retail,” said Brandon Isner, the head of retail research at CBRE, a commercial real estate firm, to CNN. 

“A lot of great real estate is going to come available into a market where there’s been no vacancies. It will not take long for retailers to occupy those spaces.”

“For us, the biggest source of new store locations comes from other retailers closing stores. So many of our most productive locations were formerly Circuit City or Toys ‘R’ Us or Sports Authority,” Burlington CEO Michael O’Sullivan said.

New commercial real estate construction has decreased vastly within the last couple of years, and retail store spaces have also been scarce, so the availability of these large building spaces could be a new opportunity for major retailers. 

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Bed Bath & Beyond has stores in all 50 states, a majority of them are in the most populated areas of the country. A majority of the stores are also located in large cities and mid-size suburbs. These are all good qualities for retailers looking to expand their spaces in a prime location. 

“There is good interest for Bed Bath & Beyond stores that are closing given desirable locations and an average size of around 30,000 square feet,” retail analysts from Telsey Advisory Group said.

“In some cases, landlords are also eager to replace old Bed Bath & Beyond leases because the company was paying below-market rent in certain locations,” Telsey Advisory Group analysts said.

“Bed Bath and Beyond sites are interesting to us, and we are exploring available opportunities with our franchisees,” a spokesperson told CNN.

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Economists Worried About The Current State Of Commercial Real Estate 

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Economists are currently worried about the state of the $20 trillion commercial real estate industry. Ever since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, office and retail property values have fallen due to lower occupancy rates, and the shift to working from home and rise in online retail. 

According to Goldman Sachs economists, about 80% of all bank loans for commercial properties are coming from regional banks; smaller banks have had more pressure to liquidate properties as time goes on and the properties don’t show a lot of interest. 

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“I do think you will see banks pull back on commercial real estate commitments more rapidly in a world [where] they’re more focused on liquidity, and I do think that is going to be something that will be important to watch over the coming months and quarters,”  wrote Goldman Sachs Research’s Richard Ramsden, reported by CNN.

Xander Snyder is a senior commercial real estate economist at First American who recently spoke to the media about the current state of the commercial real estate market and its potential threats to the economy. 

“Price growth is slowing and for some asset classes it’s starting to decline. Office properties have been more challenged than others for obvious reasons.”

“Now private lending to the industry is starting to slow as well — bank lending was beginning to dry up over a month before the Silicon Valley Bank failure even happened. Credit was getting scarce for all commercial real estate and a fresh bank failure on top of that only exacerbates that trend,” Snyder explained. 

“A lot of people hear commercial real estate and they think it’s all the same thing and the trends are they’re all the same but they’re not. The underlying fundamentals of multifamily and industrial assets remain relatively stable on a national level.”

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Snyder then explained exactly why commercial real estate ended up in the position it’s in today after the trends it saw within the past few years: 

“As credit becomes scarcer and more expensive, it’s hard to know exactly what buildings are worth. You get this gap opening up between sellers and buyers: Sellers want to get late 2021 prices and buyers are saying ‘we don’t know what things are worth so we’ll give you this lowball offer.’ That was already happening and the result of that price differential was bringing deal activity down.

It’s different for office and retail properties. There’s been a fundamental shift in how we use office space and that has changed demand. That’s something you should have your eye on, especially as low-interest office loans come due.

We’re running into a situation where office-owners have to refinance at a higher rate and only 50% of the building is being used. That doesn’t translate to good cash flow metrics for the lender,” he explained. 

According to The National Association for Business Economists’ (NABE) most recent survey, published this Monday, a majority of economists are predicting a recession to occur this year as inflation rates will likely remain above 4%.

“Panelists generally agree on the outlook for inflation and the consequences of rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. More than seven in ten panelists believe that growth in the consumer price index (CPI) will remain above 4% through the end of 2023, and more than two-thirds are not confident that the Fed will be able to bring inflation down to its 2% goal within the next two years without inducing a recession,” said NABE Policy Survey Chair Mervin Jebaraj.

How The Real Estate Industry Is Working To Combat Climate Change

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Real estate accounts for nearly 40% of the energy-related carbon emissions in the world. Investors are now focusing on cutting emissions to net zero by refurbishing old properties and avoiding new projects.

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Facebook Is Entering Into The World Of Real Estate 

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Facebook is currently planning to develop a community near its headquarters in Menlo Park, California. The property is set to have a supermarket, restaurants, shops, and a 193-room hotel. 

The company town will be known as Willow Village, and will contain over 1,700 apartments on site, including 320 more affordable units and 120 that will be set aside specifically for senior citizens. 

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Willow Village is being developed on a 59-acre site which currently stands as an industrial and research complex. Facebook is collaborating with Signature Development Group to create the space; the group is a Bay Area real estate developer known for creating spaces that combine commercial and residential spaces. 

The design for Willow Village is projected to be very community oriented and pedestrian friendly. It will have numerous bike trails, sidewalk space, and numerous public park spaces; including a quarter-mile elevated park meant to emulate the High Line in Manhattan, NYC.

The development will also contain a 1.25-million-square-foot office building that will include a massive glass-dome area known as the “collaboration area.” 

Facebook initially filed paperwork to redevelop the 59-acre site back in 2017, but were met with major resistance from residents in nearby neighborhoods who were worried about the traffic and housing prices that would be impacted. 

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In order to accommodate, Facebook created a blueprint that made Willow Village have 30% less office space to make room for 200 more apartments. It also agreed to prioritize construction of grocery stores and other retail options that any citizen can use, not just employees. 

“We’re deeply committed to being a good neighbor in Menlo Park. We listened to a wide range of feedback and the updated plan directly responds to community input,” said John Tenanes, Facebook’s VP of real estate.

Willow Village will not just be for Facebook employees. The City of Menlo Park is still currently reviewing Facebook’s proposal that would allow for prime residential access to the spaces in Willow Village, but it’s expected that the proposal will be approved in the coming weeks. 

The goal is to have as many Facebook employees as possible living in the village to allow for optimal business. The public aspect will also help the social media giant further grow because they now will have direct access to the individuals who use the platform every day. 

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Companies Are Looking For Pet-Friendly Office Spaces For After The Pandemic 

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Throughout the past year of the pandemic, our pets have become a source of emotional support, as well as our co-workers, as we navigated what working from home actually looked like. Now, as more and more people are getting vaccinated, companies are looking for ways to welcome their employees back into an office environment, and choosing spaces where their furry friends can continue to work with them everyday has become a major priority. 

According to a study performed by OnePoll in collaboration with the Canfield Pet Hospital, 50% of executive-level employees claim that they are considering allowing their employees to bring their pets to work as often as they please in the future. 59% of executives claimed that they already had relatively loose policies when it came to allowing pets in the office, but would now be “much more flexible” when it came to pet policies. 

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These discussions have become especially important considering how many people became pet owners during the pandemic. Many new pet owners are worried about how their pets, and themselves individually, will react to a normal work schedule that would require one to leave their house every day. 

63% of pet owners claimed that they have anxiety over how their pets will react to a post-pandemic work routine. Luckily, 75% of the executives surveyed said that they themselves have learned about the importance of being a pet owner, and how it actually helped them become a better, more compassionate, business leader. 

The study also found that “among executives who are crafting a specific pet policy in the workplace, 59% say their plans were motivated by employee requests. 58% say they understand that staff members have gotten used to being around their pets all day, and 42% say a pet perk at work would entice employees to return to the office.”

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Brian Garish is the president of Banfield Pet Hospital, who claims that research has shown in the past that dogs in the workplace actually make employees more collaborative and less stressed. 

“We’ve seen the human-animal bond only get stronger during the pandemic, and it’s no surprise that owners are thinking about how they can best be there for their pets when they start to spend more time outside of home. We believe we can advance human health through pet health, elevating societal well-being.”

Employees surveyed who discussed how before the pandemic their workplace already allowed pets in the office, claimed that it often always prompted an increase in employee socialization, and often encouraged more employees to come to work. It also led to an increase in productivity and made employees more willing to work later if it was needed.