The vacancy rate is stabilizing at a near record level of 13.8%, up from 9.4% in the fourth quarter in 2019. Since the second quarter of 2020, U.S. office tenants have vacated close to 209 million square feet of space, the highest amount ever for a four-and-half-year period.
A lengthy stretch of scant new construction of retail real estate, combined with demand from expanding retailers, has reduced a longstanding property glut. Retail availability sits near record lows.
Median new-home prices were down on a monthly basis for much of the past year. The most recent decline of nearly 5% in August brought them to roughly $420,000. Prices for previously owned homes, meanwhile, have hit record highs.
Only 30% of the office loans worth more than $100 million that matured this year were paid back on time, with the rest either getting extensions or defaulting. By comparison, 70% of loans worth less than $10 million were paid back on time—a sign that lenders are much more comfortable issuing smaller mortgages for now.
Home insurance premiums for mortgage loans of more than $1.5 million jumped 130% between mid-2020 and mid-2024. For mortgages of between $400,000 and $800,000, home insurance premiums increased 12% over the same period.
The value of commercial real-estate loans in foreclosure nearly tripled between January and August this year to reach $19.2 billion.
Only 7% of large tech companies require employees to be in the office five days a week, compared with 33% for all U.S. companies.
Between 2018 and 2022, the share of households with annual incomes of more than $750,000 that rented rose to 10.5%, the highest level since the survey began in the mid-2000s. It was 8.4% in the previous five-year period.
American and overseas companies have committed nearly half a trillion dollars to build new factories for electric vehicles, semiconductors and other products in the U.S. Investors are planning to acquire or build warehouses, hotels, office buildings and apartments near coming factories across the Sunbelt and Rust Belt, where most of these so-called onshoring projects are under way, wagering that as new manufacturing hubs come online and create jobs they will produce a “multiplier effect,” with growing employment increasing demand for homes, shopping and more.
