HqO Blog • Real Estate Experience Trends

Real Estate Experience Trends

The Market Isn’t Shrinking. It’s Sorting.

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe State of REX 2026 is here. See the data behind CRE’s experience-led divide, and what the operators pulling away are doing differently.

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AI Is the Office Market’s Best Tenant and Its Biggest Long-Term Problem.

Reading Time: 4 minutesTech firms leased 11.5 million square feet of office space in Q1 2026. A decade-high 23% of all U.S. leasing activity, according to CBRE.

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Debt Is Cheap. Conviction Is the Scarce Resource.

Reading Time: 3 minutesJLL published new data yesterday. Its Global Credit Intensity Rating hit all-time highs. Lenders are fighting to put money to work in commercial real estate.

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New Tenants Are Back. What the Data Says They’re Actually Coming For.

Reading Time: 3 minutesPiedmont REIT announced on June 1 that it had signed 240,000 square feet of new leases in the second quarter through that date.

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AI Isn’t Killing Commercial Real Estate. It’s the Most Disruptive Landlord It’s Ever Had.

Reading Time: 3 minutesIn mid-May, Meta cut 8,000 employees. In the same earnings call, the company raised its 2026 data center spending forecast to $125-145 billion. Up 8 percent from its prior estimate.

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The Office Is Back. The Strategy Isn’t.

Reading Time: 3 minutesOffice utilization hit 53% in 2026. That’s up from 38% a year ago and 35% the year before. CBRE’s 2026 Global Workplace and Occupancy Insights found that the #1 reason employees show up is to collaborate with colleagues.

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The Institutions Are Back in Office. What They’re Actually Buying.

Reading Time: 3 minutesOffice investment sales hit $20.5 billion in the first quarter of 2026. That’s up 38.6% from the same quarter last year, per Avison Young’s latest report.

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The Office Isn’t Back. The Meeting Room Is.

Reading Time: 3 minutesNew research from OfficeSpace Software covers 954 organizations, 3.9 million in-office employees, and 116 million square feet of office.

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Extend And Pretend Is Ending. The Buildings That Survive Won’t Be The Ones The Lenders Saved.

Reading Time: 3 minutesPropmodo ran a piece this week called “The End of Extend and Pretend.” It’s the cleanest framing I’ve seen on what’s about to happen.

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Durst Is Spending Tens Of Millions On A Midtown Office Reposition. Zero Of It Is Going To A New Gym.

Reading Time: 3 minutesDurst Organization just put 600,000 square feet on the market at 114 West 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan. A 26-story, LEED Gold tower built in 1989.

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Cushman Just Quantified It. AI Is Going To Add 330 Million Square Feet Of CRE Demand. The Room Mix Inside Those Buildings Already Flipped

Reading Time: 3 minutesCushman & Wakefield dropped a report this month that should end the “AI is going to gut office demand” trade for good.

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Hudson Pacific’s Q1 Was The Whole 2026 Office Story In One Earnings Report.

Reading Time: 3 minutesHudson Pacific Properties reported Q1 2026 results on Wednesday. The headline numbers were straightforwardly good.

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Office Leasing Just Hit a Decade High. The Buildings Getting Leased Aren’t Built for the Demand.

Reading Time: 3 minutesBisnow dropped the headline of the year this week. U.S. office tenants signed roughly 120 million square feet of new leases in Q1 2026. Up 25% over Q1 2025.

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Bottom-Decile Office Isn’t Coming Back. Conversion Is The Honest Answer. Cleveland’s Been Showing The Math For A Decade.

Reading Time: 3 minutes6.6 million square feet of office space converted. Almost 4,000 housing units delivered. Another 1,500 in the pipeline. Roughly 30 landmark buildings repurposed.

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AI Was Supposed to Empty the Office. The Heaviest Users Are Coming In Most.

Reading Time: 3 minutesGensler’s 2026 Global Workplace Survey landed last week. 30% of office workers are now AI power users, meaning they use AI tools at home and at work.

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The Most Expensive Empty Building in America Finally Woke Up

Reading Time: 3 minutesGoogle signed a full-building lease on Austin’s Sail Tower in…

The Building Is Falling Apart. The Rent Is at a Record.

Reading Time: 3 minutesA half-floor unit on the 94th floor of 432 Park…

The Office Market Just Beat 2019. Your Building Might Not Have.

Reading Time: 3 minutesU.S. occupiers leased 127.3 million square feet in the first…

Everyone in CRE Is Using AI. Almost No One Trusts It.

Reading Time: 3 minutesCommercial real estate adopted AI faster than anyone predicted. Lease…

The Best Building Demo of 2026 Was a Soccer Stadium

Reading Time: 3 minutesSix million fans walked into 16 stadiums this summer with…

WeWork Is 90% Full. The Ten-Year Future Isn’t.

Reading Time: 3 minutesWeWork locations are running 88 to 92% occupancy. The company…

Law Firms Came Back. Hollywood Didn’t. The Difference Is the Floor Plan.

Reading Time: 3 minutesOffice vacancy tightened in more than half of major U.S….

The Million-Dollar Rooftop: Your Building’s Most Underpriced Asset Is Its Empty Hours.

Reading Time: 3 minutesSome landlords are making a million dollars a year on space they never leased.

New York Froze $10 Billion of Data Centers. Office Landlords Just Lost Their Favorite Excuse.

Reading Time: 3 minutesOn Tuesday, Governor Hochul signed the nation’s first statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers.

AI Won’t Fix How CRE Makes Decisions. It’s Going to Expose It.

Reading Time: 3 minutes88% of commercial real estate investors and owners have started AI pilots, per JLL’s global technology survey of more than 1,500 senior decision-makers.

Law Firms Are Signing Record Leases and Cutting Desk Space. Both Things Are the Point.

Reading Time: 3 minutesLegal office leasing is running 46% above its pre-pandemic average. Tech leasing, the sector everyone spent a decade designing offices around, is down 8% against the same baseline.

Brooklyn Just Deleted 336,000 Square Feet of Office. It Was the Right Call.

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe biggest development in Brooklyn just erased its office component entirely. Cirrus Real Estate Partners and LCOR presented a revised plan for Atlantic Yards Phase II this week.

Brookfield Is Leaving DC Office. Here’s What The Buyers Are Doing That Brookfield Wasn’t.

Reading Time: 3 minutesBrookfield Is Leaving DC Office. Here’s What The Buyers Are Doing That Brookfield Wasn’t.

The Recovery Is Real. It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed.

Reading Time: 3 minutesNew York’s office market is having its best year since the pandemic. Vacancies are tightening, sublease space is shrinking, rents are inching up, and return-to-office is running ahead of every other major U.S. city.

The Skills AI Can’t Replace Are Exactly What Your Building Needs to Provide

Reading Time: 3 minutesGraduation unemployment for 22-to-27-year-olds just hit its highest rate since the Global Financial Crisis. Not a great time to be entering the workforce.