What Can Consumer Trends Tell Us about CRE Eight Months into the Pandemic? by Kevin Sanz, CCIM, MSIRE

Posted on October 07, 2020

As states across the country continue to lift coronavirus restrictions, many businesses are reopening their doors to both employees and consumers eager to get their lives back to normal. However, the harsh reality of the past eight months is that consumer behavior has changed. How this will impact commercial real estate and business operations over the long-term remains to be seen.

What we do know is that not all businesses will be turning their lights back on. In fact, industry insiders insist that the pandemic helped to accelerate the closings of a glut of underperforming retail stores and restaurants that were already struggling to adapt to consumers’ changing needs – both before and during the virus. Other businesses pivoted rather quickly, transitioning easily to work-from-home (WFH) policies that have change their use and need for physical office space in the future. Those policies combined with safer-at-home orders have forced consumers to transform their homes into self-contained work/school/play hubs for their entire families. Consequently, a significant number of U.S. families are leaving dense urban areas in favor or more spacious single-family homes in the suburbs. While it is still too early to tell if this will lead to a more long-term suburban revival, investors with commercial property in secondary and tertiary markets appear well-poised to reap the rewards of a suburban shift.

With offices in Miami, Orlando, New York City and Geneva, the team at Orion works with investors, developers, property owners and brokers through all phases of real estate transactions, from strategic planning and analysis to financing, negotiation, property management and disposition. For more information, call (305) 278-8400 or email info@orionmiami.com.

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