When the pandemic began, most analysts predicted that commercial real estate would be one of the hardest hit industries. The exodus from urban centres and the collapse of high street retailers left property companies reeling. Another cloud hung over office real estate, as staff switched to working from home and anchor tenants threatened to move out of longtime bases in New York and London, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The only question was: would office workers come back, and if so when?While there has been a slow return to office work, the data so far shows that spaces are not back to anything close to their pre-pandemic normal: US office occupancy was still at only 43 per cent as of April 2022, according to the property management firm, CBRE. This may be a long-term trend. Just over half of respondents to a recent survey by the law firm DLA Piper predicted a permanent increase in the number of workers who spend less than 50 per cent of their time working in office buildings.
疫情开始时，大多数分析师预测，商业房地产将是受影响最严重的行业之一。城市中心的人口外流和商业街零售商的凋敝让房地产公司举步维艰。写字楼地产也被乌云所笼罩，员工们转向居家办公，主要租户可能搬离位于纽约、伦敦、香港和上海的长期办公地。唯一的问题在于：上班族会回来吗？如果会，什么时候回来呢？