Blog:

Pandemic Impact on Commercial Real Estate

It’s no surprise the impact this pandemic has made on many industries throughout 2020. The Commercial Real Estate market was no exception. We had restaurants shutting down, shops moving out of their retail space, and office workers abandoning their office spaces to work remotely. Needless to say, these were and still are challenging times. Everyone hoped to put 2020 in the past and get back to some normalcy in 2021. Unfortunately, we aren’t quite there yet. Here are some trends we saw in 2020 and where we see 2021 going. 

Hospitality & Travel Difficulties

The hospitality industry arguably got hit the hardest throughout 2020 and will continue to endure many hardships with the decline in travel and many events canceling. As the vaccine continues to ship out across the country, this will hopefully bring more success to this industry. 

Bigger Office Space

Those working in traditional office spaces were affected as well. Some offices had to move to a flexible work environment, splitting their week working from home and in the office. Others went fully remote and never looked back. But unfortunately, a lot of businesses had to close their doors. In the first couple of months of 2021, many companies are still using the hybrid or remote working approach. As we navigate this year, businesses could start to have employees work from the office full time. Because there will still need to be social distancing practices in the workplace, this could require businesses to find larger office spaces to accommodate the spacing. 

Retail Shift to Online

Retail, an industry already on the decline before the pandemic started, continued to take an even bigger hit as fewer people are physically going into retail stores and shopping online instead. Moving through 2021, don’t be surprised if more and more shops close their retail space, especially if they don’t have a successful online presence. 

More Warehouse Space

Growing retailers seeing an increase in online orders are now looking to lease or rent a warehouse space to store the influx of product demand, which is a huge positive for the commercial real estate industry. This trend will continue through 2021 as more retailers close their physical retail space and shift to online only. Also, many manufacturing and industrial companies are growing to the point of needing to rent a warehouse space as demand increases. 

If you are one of the businesses looking to right-size your workspace this year – we are here for you. Let us help you lease, rent a warehouse space or a find the perfect office size for you by ?contacting the experts at L.B. Andersen?today! Give us a call at 847-381-9080. We will take care of all your commercial real estate needs.