CRE Experts Mostly Aced Their 2021 Predictions. Here’s What They Missed — And 3 Trends No One Saw Coming
December 9, 2021 | Andrew Martinez | Bisnow
The ever-optimistic commercial real estate industry was hoping for the best and preparing for the worst at the end of a difficult 2020, with incoming coronavirus vaccines prompting hope for a rebound.
Experts assumed big changes for 2021 in response to the pandemic’s wide-ranging impact and actually nailed a lot of their predictions: Developers spending on well-amenitized multifamily assets were rewarded; office landlords rushed to upgrade their buildings’ health and sustainability bona fides; construction starts came back to life, albeit briefly; and niche development trends like office repositionings grew.
Yet the Covid-19 crisis continued to throw some major curveballs at the industry — the delta variant postponed the great post-Labor Day office return into 2022 and a pandemic-related shipping backlog created a global supply chain crisis that caused ripple effects across every asset class.
Industry experts missed on only a few of their 2021 predictions, although much of their failure to deliver stems from coronavirus cases rising and falling through the year, forcing intermittent restrictions. Bisnow took a look at which trends didn’t materialize, plus a few that caught the industry by surprise.
