The Office... Shortage?

Today’s Thesis Driven is a guest letter from Clint Myers, Partner at Revolution’s Rise of the Rest real estate venture.

A shortage of office space may seem incomprehensible. After all, various reports show that office attendance is down 30% from pre-pandemic levels and that demand will be structurally lower in the future, an opinion I share. So how can there be a shortage? Well, to paraphrase one notable real estate investor, it depends what your definition of “office space” is. In the following sections we are going to explore this real-time situation, outlining why much of the investment market might be wrong, and offering some suggestions on how to take advantage of the confusion.

• An organizing overview of what the U.S. office market “is”;
• A proposed reclassification of the office market;
• A view on the future supply and demand for office space;
• A comparison of the Office Armageddon with the Retail Apocalypse;
• How to make a billion dollars from this mis-understanding.