Major Real Estate Investors Seek To Place Billions, But Not Necessarily Into Office Buildings

In an article published today on Bisnow, Institutional investors have billions looking for real estate investments. Industrial and multi-family have been the favorites, but there is too much competition for these two product types and there has been a shift towards life sciences, medical and data centers.  In the past downtown office investments have been near the top of the list, but not today. ‘The concern around downtown office investment has continued because workers have still to return in large numbers, now 17 months after the pandemic began. Security firm Kastle Systems reported an average building occupancy of 31% across the 10 largest markets during the week of July 7, down from 32.7% the week before.’ Two dynamics impacting the office market at the same time. Major users like Google are beginning to demand workers come back to the office, but with the Delta Variant causing Covid cases to spike upwards might there be at least a partial return to working-from-home until we get the rest of the country vaccinated?