Post Covid Stress Syndrome

John Jarvis | HM Blog
March 22, 2021

This prolonged work-from-home, physical distancing experience has been hard. I think we all need to acknowledge that. Undoubtedly there is a spectrum, from hard to harder to hardest, and I believe we all fall somewhere on that continuum. And now that case counts are declining and vaccinations are increasing there is growing dialogue about when we will return to work, when we will return to in-person social interaction and when we will return to some modified version of what we used to consider normal. As part of that conversation, I believe it is important that we consider how we will go back. Like atmospheric re-entry, or rising up from the ocean floor, avoiding injury requires some prior planning.

Reducing Real Estate Expenses by “Restructuring” a Commercial Lease

David Marino | HM Blog
January 21, 2021

When the business community begins to open back up this year, many business owners and executive teams are going to look around at all of their excess space remaining from reductions in force and team members working from home post-Covid and wonder what to do about it. With the business community considering how to rebuild their organizations, there will be anemic demand for new office space. Those office tenants already planning to come back are generally thinking they need 50%-80% of their pre-Covid footprint. As tenants’ leases expire, the commercial real estate market is experiencing “negative net absorption” as tenants with office leases expiring downsize and give space back in droves. At the same time, both sublease inventory and space given back to landlords from tenant defaults is flooding the market. This combination of weak demand and spiking supply is causing commercial rents to crash, and a spiking in concessions such as free rent, moving allowances, parking concessions and shorter lease terms, creating the strongest tenants’ market since the 2000 Tech Wreck.