It\u2019s been nearly 10 years since the financial crisis hit U.S. real estate like a sledgehammer, effectively putting the brakes on the loose credit spending and regulation that brought it about. The residential market took the biggest hit, with homeowners losing their properties to foreclosures and big financial players such as Lehman Brothers\u00a0going bankrupt. While the commercial sector\u00a0didn’t come out of the downturn unscathed, either, it never really crashed in the same way as the housing market did.<\/p>\n
Sister publication COMMERCIALCaf\u00e9 wanted to see the impact the recession had on U.S. office investment, and conducted an analysis<\/a> of the market from 1997 to 2017,\u00a0using detailed Yardi Matrix data. What they found was that, following a period of recovery, office sales activity has been on the rise starting 2010, and reached a post-downturn high in 2015\u2013a high very close to the 2007 pre-recession peak. Manhattan was the most active market in terms of office transactions both before and<\/em> after the financial crash,\u00a0with investor interest actually strengthening after 2008. The Bay Area recorded the highest increase in office sales volume in the decade following the recession, a trend fueled by the market’s emergence as a tech Mecca.\u00a0<\/p>\n