US Office Market Grapples with Surging CMBS Delinquencies and Shifting Industry Trends
- MMCG
- 48 minutes ago
- 21 min read
The US office market has endured a tumultuous 12 months, marked by rising stress in commercial real estate finance and weakening demand for office space. One stark indicator is the soaring delinquency rate on office loans packaged into commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). In the past year, the CMBS office delinquency rate nearly doubled, reaching record highs as many office landlords struggled to make debt payments amid emptying buildings. This surge in defaults is more than just a finance story – it reflects deeper troubles in the office sector, from persistently elevated vacancies to anemic leasing activity. It also reverberates beyond office landlords, affecting a web of adjacent industries. From office supply retailers to equipment wholesalers and even heavy machinery manufacturers, companies tied to office usage are facing varied fortunes – some mirroring the office market’s decline, others adapting or finding stability. In this report, we take a data-driven look at how CMBS delinquencies have evolved over the past year and what they signal about the broader US office market health. We also examine core office market fundamentals (vacancy rates, rents, construction) and explore five related industries to see whether they too are feeling the office downturn or charting a different course.
CMBS Office Loan Delinquencies Hit Record Highs
After years of relative calm, CMBS delinquency rates on office mortgages have surged to unprecedented levels, underscoring the financial strain on office building owners. The CMBS delinquency rate measures the percentage of securitized commercial mortgage loans that are 30+ days past due or in foreclosure. In essence, it’s a barometer of distress: a rising delinquency rate means more property owners are defaulting on their loans. Over the past 12 months, this metric for the office sector climbed sharply – a clear warning sign of trouble in the US office market.
As 2025 began, the office CMBS delinquency rate was already elevated in the double digits, reflecting the pandemic-era downturn. In January 2025 it stood at roughly 10.2%, a slight retreat from late-2024’s then-record level as a few distressed loans were resolved. But any relief was short-lived. By mid-2025, office loan delinquencies resumed their climb, breaching 11% and setting new records. The rate peaked in the early fall of 2025 at around 11.7%, the highest level on record to that point. A modest dip followed toward year-end – the delinquency rate pulled back to about 11.3% in December 2025 as some troubled loans were cured or resolved. However, this proved temporary. With the new year, defaults ticked up again. By January 2026 the office CMBS delinquency rate pushed to 12.3%, its highest level ever. In the span of a year, the share of securitized office mortgages in delinquency rose by roughly two percentage points, an extraordinary jump considering it was below 2% just a few years ago.
The table below summarizes the trajectory of office CMBS delinquency rates over the past year:
Date | Office CMBS Delinquency Rate |
January 2025 | 10.2% (post-2024 pullback) |
June 2025 | 11.1% (new peak mid-year) |
October 2025 | 11.7% (all-time high to date) |
December 2025 | 11.3% (slight improvement) |
January 2026 | 12.3% (new all-time high) |
Table 1: CMBS delinquency rate for office loans over the past 12+ months. The rate represents the percentage of outstanding office-loan CMBS balances that are delinquent (30+ days overdue or in foreclosure).
What exactly does a rising CMBS delinquency rate mean? In practical terms, it signals that more office building owners are falling behind on mortgage payments – often because their properties are losing tenants, generating less rent, and failing to cover debt costs. Many of these loans were bundled and sold as CMBS bonds; when landlords default, those bonds incur losses. A delinquent loan can eventually lead to foreclosure or a distressed sale of the building, so a spike in delinquencies is a red flag for distress in the property market. Office loans now account for a disproportionate share of CMBS defaults. In fact, the office sector has been the single biggest driver of rising CMBS defaults in the past year. This is noteworthy because during earlier crises (like the Global Financial Crisis or the early pandemic), it was typically hotels or retail properties leading CMBS delinquencies – now the stress has clearly shifted to offices.
Crucially, soaring delinquencies are both a symptom and a cause of office market woes. They are a symptom in that they reflect underlying weak fundamentals (companies shrinking their office footprints, higher vacancies, falling property valuations). But they can also exacerbate the situation, as mounting defaults make lenders more cautious. When lenders and bond investors see delinquency rates spiking, they often pull back on extending new credit to office properties or demand higher interest rates. That reduced flow of capital can further depress building values and make refinancing existing loans harder, creating a vicious cycle for the office sector. In short, the elevated CMBS delinquency rate is a quantitative measure of the office market’s pain – one that underscores how financial stress and real estate fundamentals are intertwined.
How high are office CMBS delinquencies now compared to the past? The current ~12% delinquency rate on office CMBS is unprecedented. Even during the worst of the Great Recession, the office CMBS delinquency peaked around 10.7%. And during the 2020 COVID shock, it briefly hit about 3%–4% before subsiding. So today’s levels far exceed previous peaks, highlighting the unique severity of the office sector’s downturn.
Office Market Fundamentals: Vacancy, Leasing, and Rent Weakness
The financial distress captured by rising delinquencies is rooted in a deterioration of core office market fundamentals. Over the past year, U.S. offices have continued to struggle with high vacancy rates, minimal tenant demand, and stagnant rents. Remote and hybrid work arrangements – which became widespread during the pandemic – have not receded enough to refill tens of millions of square feet of empty office space. Many companies now require less office real estate than they did before, leaving landlords scrambling to backfill space and often coming up short.
Vacancy rates in the US office market are hovering near historic highs. Nationally, the office vacancy rate hit 14.2% in mid-2025, the highest level on record. For context, before 2020, U.S. office vacancies had rarely breached the 13% mark even in past downturns. Over the second half of 2025, there was a glimmer of improvement – as leasing picked up slightly and very little new supply was added, the vacancy rate inched down to about 14.0% by year-end 2025, effectively plateauing at that all-time high plateau. In other words, vacancies stopped rising for the first time since the pandemic, but they remain extraordinarily elevated. Major city centers like San Francisco and Chicago saw particularly steep rises in empty space last year, whereas a few markets with diversified economies (and population growth) managed slight occupancy gains. Overall, though, roughly one in seven office spaces nationwide is now sitting vacant, a dramatic shift from a decade ago when the vacancy rate was about 9–10%. This oversupply has been a key factor driving landlord distress.
One reason vacancies have stopped climbing is that new construction of offices has virtually ground to a halt. With developers and lenders wary, the pipeline of new office buildings under construction has shrunk to its lowest level in over a decade. In 2025, only about 40 million square feet of new office space was delivered nationwide – the smallest annual addition on record in modern times. By comparison, a typical year in the late 2010s saw 60–70 million square feet of new offices open. Now, quarterly groundbreakings are running at a trickle (roughly 5 million SF per quarter in late 2025). This dearth of new supply has been a mixed blessing: on one hand, it prevents the vacancy glut from worsening; on the other, it underscores how little optimism developers have about near-term office demand. In some cases, owners have even removed space from the market – either by demolishing aging offices or converting them to other uses – effectively shrinking the total inventory. This happened in 2025 in certain cities, where a handful of obsolete office buildings were taken offline, offsetting what little new space came online. Such removal of inventory helped stabilize the vacancy rate by late 2025, but only to a limited extent.
Meanwhile, tenant demand for offices shows only tepid improvement. Nationwide net absorption – the net change in occupied office space – remained negative for most of 2025, meaning tenants collectively gave up more office space than they leased through the year. In fact, U.S. offices saw a net loss of about 13 million square feet of occupied space in 2025 (on top of tens of millions lost in 2020–2024). The encouraging news is that the back-half of 2025 finally saw a turn toward positive absorption in some areas. The third quarter of 2025 was reportedly the first quarter since 2021 that the U.S. office market eked out a net gain in occupied space. This was a pivotal (if small) turning point – it suggests that move-outs have begun to slow and some businesses are cautiously taking up new space again, at least in select locations. For example, New York City – the country’s largest office market – saw a notable uptick in leases, recording over 3 million square feet of positive absorption in early 2025 as some firms expanded or relocated into quality buildings. Sunbelt markets like Dallas and Houston also managed to absorb space thanks to corporate relocations and growth in certain sectors. However, other cities (notably Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles) continued to see tenants give back large blocks of space throughout 2025. The demand recovery is very uneven – concentrated in top-tier (“trophy”) office buildings and in regions with better economic and population growth, while older buildings and struggling metros keep bleeding tenants.
Leasing activity in general remains subdued by historical standards, even if it improved slightly in 2025. By the numbers, overall office leasing volumes (new leases signed) rose about 5% in 2025 compared to 2024, as more companies solidified post-pandemic occupancy plans. But despite that bump, leasing is still running 5–10% below pre-2020 norms. Many tenants are also leasing smaller spaces than before – the average lease size in 2025 was 15–20% smaller than pre-pandemic, as companies continue to cut back footprints in the hybrid work era. Big corporate campus deals are rare these days; instead, tenants are often renewing existing offices for shorter terms or taking “spec suites” (ready-to-use smaller offices) rather than large custom-build spaces. This reflects ongoing uncertainty: firms are reluctant to over-commit to space they might not need if remote work persists or economic conditions soften. The upshot is that while leases are still being signed – preventing an outright freefall – the volume and scale of office leasing is a far cry from what it was a decade ago.
Unsurprisingly, rent growth has flattened in this environment. Landlords have had to offer heavy concessions (like free rent periods and hefty tenant improvement allowances) to lure occupiers, which means effective rents net of incentives are under pressure. Asking rents on paper have risen a modest amount – the average asking rent for U.S. offices ticked up roughly 1% in 2025. Nominal rents edged higher to about $36–$37 per square foot on average, partly due to inflation and higher operating costs that landlords attempt to pass through. But once freebies and inflation are accounted for, real rents are essentially stagnant or down. In top-quality buildings, landlords have managed to hold rents mostly steady (or even push small increases for the most coveted spaces), whereas older Class B/C buildings in weak locations have seen rent cuts. On an inflation-adjusted basis, average office rents are below pre-pandemic levels, and market analysts expect “treading water” rent performance in 2026 as well. In short, pricing power is minimal for landlords when vacancy is 14% and every lease is hard-won. Many owners are more focused on retaining existing tenants – even at lower rents – than on raising rents in this climate.
Construction of new offices, as noted, has plummeted – which is one mildly positive trend for landlords because it means less future competition. Developers have virtually ceased breaking ground on speculative office projects in most cities. The only places still seeing notable office construction are pockets of the Sunbelt (like parts of Florida and Texas) and a few build-to-suit corporate headquarters. Nationally, the amount of office space under construction at the end of 2025 dropped below 2% of existing inventory, an all-time low. By comparison, before the pandemic it was common to have 4–5% of inventory under development. The collapse in new starts is tied to tighter financing conditions (lenders don’t want to fund new offices when existing ones are struggling), high construction costs, and uncertainty over future office demand. In the long run, this construction pullback could help the market find equilibrium – essentially, the supply side is finally responding to the demand shock by shutting off new additions.
Taken together, the picture of the broader US office market is one of a sector under severe strain but possibly bottoming out. Fundamentals in 2025 were undeniably weak – near-record vacancy, four straight years of cumulative occupancy losses, minimal rent growth – yet by late in the year there were hints that conditions weren’t getting much worse. “Steady leasing and peaking vacancy” are how some analysts described the end of 2025. The hope among landlords and lenders is that 2026 will begin a slow recovery: if companies stop shrinking their office presence, even a return to modest positive absorption could gradually whittle down the vacancy rate. However, the “elevated CMBS delinquency rates” serve as a reality check that the road to recovery will be uneven. Many office buildings will likely need to change hands (through foreclosure or distressed sales) before the market reaches a new equilibrium. And only a substantial strengthening in office fundamentals – meaning occupancy and rents – will truly turn the tide. Until then, the financial stress as measured by defaults is likely to continue, reflecting the ongoing mismatch between the office stock we have and the space tenants actually need in the new world of work.
Ripple Effects: How Adjacent Industries Are Faring
The upheaval in the office sector doesn’t stop at the property line of an office tower – it has ripple effects on a host of related industries. Offices are an ecosystem: they rely on supplies, equipment, furniture, and services, and their construction and operation stimulate activity in various manufacturing and retail sectors. When offices struggle (as they have been), some of these linked industries face headwinds too. At the same time, not every “office” business is slumping – some are adapting or even thriving in the new landscape. Below, we examine five adjacent industries and how each is weathering the current environment, noting whether they mirror the office real estate downturn or diverge from it.
Office Supply Stores: Traditional office supply retailers – the sellers of pens, paper, ink cartridges, and desks – have been in a long decline for over a decade, and the remote-work era has dealt them another blow. With more people working from home (or using digital tools), the need for physical office supplies has diminished. Industry revenue for U.S. office supply stores fell about 1.8% in 2025, dropping to roughly $20.9 billion. This continues a trend of steady contraction (the sector’s five-year annual decline rate was around –4% leading into 2025). Big-box chains like Staples and Office Depot have responded by shrinking their footprints and ramping up e-commerce offerings, as well as diversifying into new services. They’ve expanded online sales, launched business-to-business delivery programs, and even experimented with providing co-working spaces or tech support in-store to stay relevant. Despite these adaptation efforts, the overall outlook remains challenging. Over the next five years, office supply retailers’ revenue is projected to continue inching down (around –0.3% annually), essentially flat-lining at best. The proliferation of remote and hybrid work means fewer bulk orders from corporate offices, and consumers have largely shifted to buying supplies online or simply using less paper and ink. In short, this industry is facing persistent headwinds, much like office landlords – both are grappling with a world that simply doesn’t require as much of their core product as it used to.
Copier & Office Equipment Wholesalers: Companies that distribute office machines (think copy machines, printers, scanners, and related equipment) are likewise navigating a harsh landscape of declining demand. The push toward digital workflows and paperless offices has caused many businesses to cut back on purchasing traditional office hardware. In 2025, U.S. copier and office equipment wholesalers saw an estimated 9.8% plunge in revenue, down to about $35.9 billion. Over the past five years, their sales have contracted at roughly a –4.8% annual pace, a steep slide accelerated by the pandemic (which stalled office spending) and now permanent shifts to digital documents. While a strong economy in 2021–2022 gave a temporary bump (as some offices upgraded equipment post-pandemic), that relief didn’t last. Wholesalers have been coping by cutting costs and consolidating – many smaller distributors shut down or merged, and even big manufacturers like Xerox and Ricoh have scaled back their office divisions. Some have tried to develop new revenue streams, such as offering managed print services, IT services, or selling other electronics. These moves have stabilized profit margins somewhat in recent years, but they haven’t stopped the top-line decline. Going forward, the expectation is for continued erosion: projections show office equipment wholesaling revenues edging down by ~1.6% annually through 2030. In effect, this industry is shrinking, hand-in-hand with the reduced footprint of the office workplace. Just as office building owners are repurposing or selling assets due to fewer tenants, office equipment suppliers are slimming down because their end-users – traditional offices – are buying far less hardware than before.
Office Stationery Manufacturing: Even the manufacturers of office paper products and stationery have not been immune to the digital revolution and remote work trend. This segment includes makers of printing paper, notebooks, envelopes, folders, and other stationery staples. Demand has structurally declined as businesses and consumers go paperless or communicate electronically. Interestingly, the industry saw a brief rebound in 2022 when offices and schools reopened – in fact, U.S. stationery manufacturers’ revenue jumped about 14% that year after the late-2020 slump. But that was a one-off bump; the downward trajectory soon resumed. By 2025, the industry was back to contraction: revenue fell roughly 2.1% in 2025 to around $6.3 billion. Over the full five-year period to 2025, sales actually eked out a very slight +0.4% annual growth (thanks to the big 2022 jump), but this is misleading in terms of trend health. The underlying trend is decline, with 2025 lower than 2023 and further drops expected ahead. Indeed, forecasts for office stationery manufacturing predict a –2.4% annual decline in revenue through 2030, bringing the market down closer to $5.6 billion by decade’s end. Facing this reality, stationery makers are adapting by focusing on niche and value-added products. Many have shifted toward premium or customized stationery, hoping that branded or specialty paper goods can hold a niche in an otherwise shrinking market. They are also investing in efficiency (automation in factories) and exploring “smart” stationery that integrates with tech, as well as eco-friendly products, to cater to the remaining demand. Despite these adaptations, like office landlords, they are dealing with a market that is structurally smaller than it once was. Fewer office workers in seats means fewer notepads, memos, and mailings – a reality these manufacturers continue to grapple with.
It’s clear that the above three industries – office retailers, equipment distributors, and stationery producers – echo the office real estate sector’s headwinds. All are contracting or barely stable, and all have been forced to rethink their business models in the face of remote work and digitalization (much as office building owners are contemplating conversions to apartments or labs). They illustrate how the “office recession” extends beyond buildings to the supply chain that once served bustling offices. Each is trying to adapt (through e-commerce, consolidation, or product innovation) to survive, but none are booming in the current climate.
Office Staffing & Temp Agencies: In contrast to the above, the office staffing industry – which provides temporary office workers and staffing services to businesses – has experienced a different trajectory. Rather than suffering from remote work, staffing firms have actually been buoyed in some ways by the tight labor market and evolving work patterns. In the past couple of years, as the economy recovered from the pandemic, many companies faced worker shortages and turned to temp agencies to fill gaps quickly. The result: consecutive years of growth for staffing and temp agencies. Industry revenue grew at an estimated 2.9% annual rate over 2020–2025, reaching about $260.1 billion in 2025. Notably, 2025 itself saw a sharp 8.9% jump in revenue for staffing firms, as businesses – contending with low unemployment – leaned on temps to meet demand. (It’s worth mentioning that 2023 was a bit softer for staffing companies due to a brief surge in inflation and higher interest rates that made some businesses pull back on hiring, but the sector quickly bounced back once the Fed’s rate hikes neared their end.)
Unlike physical office industries, staffing agencies don’t depend on people being in the office – they profit from companies needing workers, whether those workers operate in a traditional office, remotely, or in other settings. In fact, the rise of hybrid work may have indirectly benefited staffing firms: companies in flux with their workforce needs have been more likely to use temporary or contract workers to stay flexible. Additionally, a broad skills gap in fields like tech, healthcare, and manufacturing means employers increasingly rely on specialized staffing agencies to find and place qualified personnel. Agencies have been adapting by offering training and upskilling programs to ensure their temp workers have the needed skills, essentially expanding into workforce development. They’re also embracing technology (AI-driven recruiting tools) to improve matchmaking between candidates and jobs, which can enhance efficiency and margins. The outlook for office staffing remains positive: industry revenue is projected to grow about 2.2% annually through 2030, approaching $290+ billion by the end of the decade. This steady growth expectation diverges sharply from the stagnation or declines in the other office-linked industries. It reflects that labor market dynamics – a high demand for flexible labor and services – are a different force than the physical office space dynamics. In summary, staffing agencies are adapting and thriving, not wilting, highlighting a divergence: while the office real estate itself is in crisis, the business of supplying office workers remains robust (albeit evolving through technology). This divergence underscores how parts of the “office economy” can flourish even as the traditional office itself struggles.
Mixer & Paver Manufacturing: A seemingly unrelated industry – manufacturers of mixers and pavers (the heavy machinery used to mix concrete and pave roads) – actually provides an intriguing contrast and indirect connection to the office sector’s fortunes. One might not think road construction equipment has much to do with offices, but it’s part of the broader construction ecosystem. When commercial real estate (like offices) slumps, private construction spending falls, which can hurt equipment demand; however, government infrastructure investment can swing the other way. In the past couple of years, mixer and paver manufacturers have enjoyed a boom thanks to public infrastructure spending. Massive federal programs (such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) injected funding into highway and road projects, directly increasing demand for paving equipment. At the same time, overall construction activity recovered post-pandemic, which also lifted machinery sales. From 2020 to 2025, industry revenue grew at roughly a 4.5% annual clip, reaching about $2.7 billion in 2025. In 2025 alone, sales were expected to rise around 4.3%. This growth came despite headwinds like high steel prices (which raised production costs) – strong demand enabled manufacturers to sell more units, even if profit margins were a bit squeezed. It’s a very different narrative from offices: here, government money and infrastructural needs created tailwinds that pushed the industry upward.
Why does this matter in the context of the US office market? It shows how one adjacent facet – construction equipment – is somewhat insulated from the office slump by policy-driven demand. Office construction might be down (bad for equipment sales), but government infrastructure work is up (good for equipment sales). The net effect was a boost that offset the office weakness. As that government boost fades, this industry isn’t crashing; it’s reverting to equilibrium. The pattern diverges from office real estate (which hasn’t found its post-pandemic equilibrium yet) and from office supplies (which are in secular decline). Mixer and paver manufacturers face more of a cyclical stabilization scenario. It’s a reminder that not all industries with a tangential link to offices move in lockstep – broader economic forces (like federal spending or global trade) can outweigh the direct impact of remote work trends here.
To synthesize the comparative trends, the table below provides a snapshot of key health indicators for the five discussed industries adjacent to the office sector. It highlights recent revenue levels, how those revenues have trended, and the expected outlook:
Industry (U.S.) | Revenue 2025 | Recent 5-Year Trend | Projected 5-Year Outlook |
Office Supply Stores | ~$20.9 billion | –4.0% CAGR (2018–25) (declining) | –0.3% CAGR (2025–30) (continued slight decline) |
Copier & Office Equipment Wholesale | ~$35.9 billion | –4.8% CAGR (2018–25) (declining) | –1.6% CAGR (2025–30) (continued decline) |
Office Stationery Manufacturing | ~$6.3 billion | +0.4% CAGR (2018–25) (volatile; 2022 spike) | –2.4% CAGR (2025–30) (return to decline) |
Office Staffing & Temp Agencies | ~$260.1 billion | +2.9% CAGR (2018–25) (growing) | +2.2% CAGR (2025–30) (continued growth) |
Table 2: Overview of adjacent industries related to offices, showing estimated revenue in 2025, recent historical growth rates, and forecast growth rates. A negative compound annual growth rate (CAGR) indicates contraction; positive indicates expansion.
As the table and foregoing discussion illustrate, industries closely tied to the office sector are largely feeling the same strain – with three notable exceptions. Sellers of office supplies, office equipment, and traditional stationery are struggling and contracting, much like office landlords, all hampered by the march of technology and remote work. On the other hand, companies involved in office staffing are growing, benefiting from labor market trends that have little to do with physical office space.
In many ways, the fortunes of these industries reflect or diverge from the office sector’s story in telling ways. They all face the question of how to remain relevant in a changing economy: the supply stores and equipment dealers must reinvent themselves as the office goes virtual; the staffing firms are adapting to new hiring technologies and the gig economy; the machinery makers ride the ebb and flow of public investment. Their successes or struggles provide a broader context for the state of the US office market. When we see paper and pen sales falling, it quantifies the same trend behind rising office vacancies – less paper used often means fewer workers in offices printing documents. When staffing revenues rise, it hints at companies’ evolving strategies for labor that might also influence how they use space. And when heavy equipment orders depend on government stimulus, it’s a reminder that even in a weak office climate, other economic levers (policy, infrastructure) can create pockets of growth.
Conclusion
The past year has been a watershed for the US office market, with the strains of a post-pandemic, remote-work world laid bare in both financial metrics and real-world usage patterns. The spike in CMBS office loan delinquencies – hitting record levels above 12% – is a flashing red light of distress, directly tied to landlords grappling with half-empty buildings and fallen property valuations. We’ve seen that the office sector’s fundamentals remain fragile: vacancies at all-time highs, tenant demand only beginning to stabilize at lower levels, and rents essentially flat as owners fight to keep occupants. New construction has virtually ceased, a necessary pause that will, it is hoped, help prevent further oversupply.
Yet, amid this turmoil, there are nuances and signs of transition. The worst may be close to its peak – with vacancy growth stalling and leasing activity inching up, the office market of late 2025 at least isn’t in free-fall, even if it’s far from healthy. The next year or two will test whether the office sector can find a new equilibrium in a hybrid-working nation. How many companies ultimately decide they do need collaborative office space (and how much of it) will determine if occupancy can slowly climb and delinquency rates finally retreat from their highs.
Beyond the glass and steel of office towers, the ripple effects are being felt widely. Industries that once thrived on bustling offices are reinventing themselves or fading away. The decline of the office has meant fewer office supplies sold, fewer copiers running, and fewer paper products ordered – a secular shift mirrored in those industries’ sliding revenues. At the same time, new opportunities emerge: staffing agencies flourish by supplying flexible workers in a tight job market, and some manufacturers see gains by pivoting to where demand exists (be it custom stationery or highway pavers).
The divergent fortunes of these adjacent industries underscore a broader truth: the economy is dynamic, and even as the US office market undergoes a painful downsizing, other segments find ways to adapt or even benefit from change. Still, the stress in offices is significant enough that it acts as a drag on urban economies, municipal finances (via lower property taxes), and the commercial real estate finance system. In the coming years, many eyes – from city planners to investors to everyday office workers – will be watching how this iconic part of American work life evolves. Will empty offices be repurposed into apartments or labs, rescuing owners and revitalizing downtowns? Or will a substantial share of office buildings remain problem loans and eventual foreclosures, as the delinquency figures seem to portend?
For now, the data tell a story of an office sector in reset mode. The pain is real and quantifiable – but so is the potential for rebirth and innovation in its wake. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that crises often accelerate needed transformations. The next chapter of the US office market will likely be defined by those who can reimagine office spaces, as well as by the resilience of businesses that support our working lives, whether in-person or remote. The road ahead is uncertain, but one thing is clear: the era of complacency in the office world is over, and all players – landlords, lenders, and industries orbiting around offices – will need to stay agile as they navigate the new normal of work.
February 9, 2026, by a collective of authors at MMCG Invest, LLC, feasibility study consultants
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