|
|
In May, for the 12th consecutive month, the amount of Manhattan office space available to lease has edged up and now stands at 17 percent of the island’s total office square footage, Bloomberg reported.
At the same time, new leases signed increased by 8 percent and rents bumped up to $73.26 per square foot, a 0.4-percent increase.
About 18 percent of Manhattan’s office workers are back at their desks, according to Kastle Systems, which records key-card swipes.
Those workers are a vanguard; Facebook, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase are among major employers that have mandated workers to return to central offices this summer.
The amount of Manhattan’s leased space being offered for sublease is about 23 percent, Bloomberg noted, the least since July 2020 but still 75 percent more than in March 2020.
TREND FORECAST: We had forecast this trend in 2020, soon after the media and politicians launched the COVID War. The crisis accelerated the work-from-home trend, in which 44 percent of eligible workers now want to make corporate policy, according to a recent ZipRecruiter survey. A significant number of those workers have already moved more than commuting distance away from their offices, making it even harder to lure them back to their company quarters.
We continue to forecast a broad decline for office property occupancy and values, especially those in suburban locations that lack the shopping and entertainment venues that make downtowns attractive.