Commercial Real Estate Under Pressure

March 29, 2021

The decline in commercial real estate caused by the pandemic could affect global financial stability. (Istock by Getty Images/YvanDube)

2020 was a record-breaking year for housing markets in many countries- including the US, but for the commercial real estate sector, it was a completely different story. Lockdown and containment measures severely affected economic activity, pushing down commercial property transactions and prices in cities around the world. A new analytical chapter in the Global Financial Stability Report looks at how continued downward pressure on prices could threaten financial stability and hamper the recovery. In this podcast, lead author Andrea Deghi, and team lead Mahvash Qureshi, say vacancy rates of office space in the US almost doubled in 2020 due to people having to work from home, a trend likely to continue well beyond the pandemic.

Read the analytical chapter

Read the blog

Mahvash Qureshi is a Division Chief in the IMF Monetary and Capital Markets Department. Andrea Deghi is a financial sector expert in the Global Financial Stability Analysis Division of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department.