Real estate company VTS has puslished its latest monthly office demand report, and the news is not good.
Nationally, demand for new office spaces dropped 12% in August, to 46% of pre-pandemic levels. That’s a 47% drop compared to a year ago, and a 31% drop over the last quarter.
Seattle saw a drop of 13.7% in August, and now sits at 44% of pre-pandemic demand levels..
VTS has two theories for the recent drop in demand: that cities with heavy concentration of “FIRE” sector companies (finance, insurance and real estate) are proceeding cautiously while interest rates and inflation are in flux; and more companies are realizing that remote work is becoming the “new normal” and their hopes to go back to pre-pandemic times are unlikkely to be realized.
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