There are low expectations that fully in-person work will ever return to pre-pandemic levels, which in turn has lessened the need for in-person workspaces. In fact, as much as 330 million square feet of U.S. office space could become vacant by the turn of the new decade, owing to remote and hybrid work, according to a report released in early 2023 by global real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. Plus, an additional 740 million square feet of office space will become vacant from “natural causes” by 2030, leaving about 1 billion square feet of unused office space, Cushman & Wakefield data shows.
Meanwhile, housing in the U.S. continues to be underbuilt. According to Morgan Stanley, the U.S. is “structurally short” an estimated 2 million housing units. That’s based on conservative assumptions. When Morgan Stanley researchers plug in “aggressive” assumptions, they calculate the U.S. is underbuilt by a staggering 6 million housing units.
