230: Post-Pandemic Demand Boomerangs Back to Cities, What Should Investors Do? w/Richard Barkham

“Super cities” are seeing a massive comeback in demand—one that most investors thought was impossible. With work-from-home being scaled back by many major companies, returning to downtown is a no-brainer for high-paid employees. With more amenities than the suburbs, younger workers are being enticed back into the office. And who’s winning with all this boomeranging demand? You guessed it—office investors. We brought CBRE’s Richard Barkham back to give us the latest update on how cities and office investors are faring.

Office investing has been heavily criticized over the past few years as vacancies exploded and tenant turnover became increasingly common. Office space was an easy target as remote work became the new norm. However, trends change, and Richard sees a massive investing opportunity in certain office space sectors. But which cities are worth investing in and around? What type of office investments are faring the best? And will we continue to see downtown demand rebound?

We’ll get into it all in this episode of On the Market. Plus, stick around to hear Richard’s predictions on interest rate cuts, whether or not we’ll achieve a “soft landing,” and what investors must be looking at NOW to make significant gains over the next few years.

In This Episode We Cover

The cities seeing the biggest influx in demand and why Americans are moving back to downtown

Why the “doom loop” scenario never came true, even though so many forecasters predicted it

The one type of office investing that could see a massive surge in demand over the next two years

Richard’s “number one investment strategy” of 2024-2025 that investors MUST look into

How residential real estate investors can take advantage of the rising demand for downtown housing

And So Much More!

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Hear Our Past Episodes with Richard:

On the Market 141 - The “Doom Loop” That Could Crash Commercial Real Estate

On the Market 179 - A “Year of Opportunity” to Come for Multifamily, Says CBRE’s Richard Barkham

Read CBRE’s Latest Reports:

Analysis of US Prime Office Buildings

Shaping Tomorrow’s Cities

Jump to topic:

(00:00) Intro

(01:24) Cities See Returning Demand 

(05:41) The "Doom Loop" Scenario 

(07:16) Offices Are Filling Up Fast

(11:24) #1 Investment Nobody is Thinking About

(15:37) Investing In and Around Cities 

(22:31) Rate Cuts and Economic Predictions 

(26:06) Investors MUST Do This

Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/on-the-market-230

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