One way to gauge the effects of the lockdown on the real estate industry is by tracking online activity. According to Google Trends data, the popularity of key search terms for office listings has seen an important drop with the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. However, the last couple of weeks have brought encouraging signs that the market might already be on track for a rebound.<\/p>\n
Between March 27 and May 3, we asked visitors to CommercialCafe and sister company Property Shark\u2019s websites to answer a set of questions about the current crisis and its effect on their office space searches. Their responses suggest a sense of optimism, and a hope that \u2015 despite the slowdown \u2015 things will revert to business as usual.<\/p>\n
Although the market is not back yet to pre-lockdown levels, optimism is reinforced by the recent uptick in traffic on CommercialCafe, as well as by a growing number of office space searches reported by Google Trends. Keep reading for more details about how businesses, entrepreneurs and other prospective tenants view the coronavirus crisis\u2019 impact on the commercial real estate market.<\/p>\n
After an inevitable slip \u2015 as news about the virus gripped the public\u2019s attention \u2015 searches for commercial real estate listings on CommercialCafe saw steady growth throughout April. The two-month timeline shows March 15 as the lowest point since the beginning of the crisis. Commercial searches that week went down by 27%, making this the steepest fall in weekly searches throughout the surveyed period. However, by the end of March and beginning of April \u2015 as hopes for a possible re-opening by Easter still lingered \u2015 traffic declined by a much slower pace compared to the previous weeks. Between April 5 and April 25 we witnessed the first uptick. The end of April and first day of May saw a 3% increase in commercial listings searches, followed by another 8% between May 3 and May 9, all signs pointing towards a progressive recovery.<\/p>\n