ATL CRE 2025

Earlier this week, CBRE announced the complete (CBRE already owned 40%) purchase of Industrious, bringing to light the new business segment within CRE known as “Building Operations & Experience (BOE)”. See Patrick Braswell‘s analysis here:
https://lnkd.in/evCBPMBM

At the end of 2024, just a couple of weeks ago, the following stats were published by Commercial Edge (link: https://lnkd.in/e-MFUJjz)

* Six out of the 25 top U.S. office markets have seen their vacancy rates increase by more than 500 basis points in the last year, with Austin leading with a 650-basis-point surge
* During 2024, 39.7 million square feet of office space was delivered, while only 9.1 million square feet broke ground
* Office properties have sold at an average of $179 per square foot, down 9% from the 2023 average sale price
* The average U.S. office listing rate stood at $32.85 per square foot, up 3.7% year-over-year
* After a slow start this year, Manhattan is once again the most sought-after market for office investment, logging $3.8 billion in transactions

Also, commercial mortgage rates ranged from 5.34% to 7.27% depending on the type of loan and lender.

What’s are the trends here, now that we’re into 2025 and about to inaugurate a new administration in Washington?

Here’s what I see as a relative newcomer to this space:
* Lots of empty office space means good deals on subleases and long term leases
* WFH as a top line “perk” for employees means employers can lease less space than they would have needed 5 years ago for the same number of employees
* Building technology has improved dramatically in the last 5 years, the very least of which is the near ubiquitous availability of fiber, and the most used of which is video conferencing technology, which is near Jetsons-like.
* CBRE has kicked down the door of Co-Working & Shared Office Space being a separate entity from CRE management companies. It’s now part of the mix.
* To level the playing field between WFH and RTO, building managers – not just their leased employers – are upping the game to make “the office” someplace you actually want to spend time.
* More CRE was delivered than started (broke ground) means more space on the market now but less on the way.

What’s all this mean? Movement. Activity. Opportunity. All of which is good for the marketplace and providers within the marketplace.

Comments

Leave a comment

More from Kevin

  • Preparation

    How do you prepare for an event that you will lead?  I think about this process all the time, and every time I lead any event.  Every Friday, when I lead Pitch Practice, I prepare to welcome newcomers and give them an overview of why we’re here and what we do, and then to help…

  • Blogging for your Brand this Thursday at General Assembly

    I’ll be leading a 2-hour class called “Blogging for your Brand” this Thursday from 6:30 – 8:30pm at General Assembly, which is located at Ponce City Market, 4 doors down from Dancing Goats in midtown.  If you or your company are engaging in content marketing or if you know that you should be doing content…

  • Back to Blogger

    Managing a WordPress site and writing in WordPress are two very different things.  I’ve enjoyed the simplicity and power of plugins managing Atlanta Tech Blogs using a simple, cheap WordPress framework with a dozen or so plugins.  It works. But writing in WordPress isn’t cutting it for me.  That, among a couple of other reasons,…

  • Was 2014 a good year?

    I tweeted this on December 30: Goodbye “cathie”. You’re dead to me. Today, I am #cancer free. Good riddance, 2014. You were not fun, but you gave us much material. #HNY — Kevin Sandlin (@kevsandlin) December 30, 2014 I’ll get to the cancer portion later, but my reason for embedding that particular tweet was “good…

  • Atlanta’s Tech Startup Blogs

    Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of Atlanta Tech Startup Blogs in alpha order.  Raise your hand if you’re not here.  Seriously, if you don’t see your favorite Atlanta Tech & Startup Blog listed, please tell me.  I’m personally blown away by the sheer number if high quality blogs from Atlanta. Have you read all these?  Wow.  There…