DLA Piper Global Real Estate Annual State of the Market Survey
The year 2020 has been remarkable and incomparable. The impact of COVID-19 on all facets of life across the globe will continue to be measured and felt for years to come, and it is within this context that DLA Piper fielded the 2020 DLA Piper Annual State of the Market Survey. Conducted between August and September of 2020, the results of the State of the Market Survey are undoubtedly influenced by COVID-19 and provide a current perspective into how real estate experts view the virus’s impact on the commercial real estate (CRE) market.
To understand the impact of COVID-19 on the CRE market, we should first look back at last year’s sentiment. Fielded over the summer of 2019, last year’s State of the Market Survey was conducted during a time of long-term economic growth and expansion in the US.1 As such, respondents in 2019 were moderately bullish and optimistic that growth would continue. No one could have expected the pandemic, which caused the largest drops in the FTSE and Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1987.2 In response, this year’s Survey results dramatically shift away from that moderately bullish outlook among CRE executives. The majority of respondents in 2020, 59 percent, anticipate a bearish market for at least the next 12 months. The swing from bullish to bearish is mostly indicative of the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic, including how it will manifest in and impact the US and global economies in the future.
