Your One-Stop Shop For End-Of-Year Recaps And 2026 Predictions
We can let out a collective sigh — we made it to see the end of 2025.
For the most part.
With the economy being rewritten in real time, banks making an unexpected leap back into the industry and the deals that sent shockwaves throughout CRE, so much happened in 2025 that the industry was struggling to keep its arms and legs inside of the ride at all times.
Before you take a breather and reset for a new year, refresh your memory on all that made our heads spin, from the championed moves to the moments we'd rather forget. And then, take a look at what's being forecast for 2026 — hopefully, the year commercial real estate finally, finally finds its footing again.
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12 Deals And Trends That Defined 2025
2025 was a real roller coaster for CRE. The industry was whipped around by tariffs and a new president rapidly rewriting policy. There were flat stretches — periods of being unable to build or buy and steeling against a looming cliff of maturities. But in the end, there was the exhilaration of three interest rate cuts and the beginning of deal recovery.
Lending is resurging. Tenants are making decisions again. Sales are closing, even of office buildings, resetting valuations brick by painful brick.
Uncertainty was one defining word of 2025. But there’s another: resilience. CRE kept putting one foot in front of the other this year and may have finally plodded through the trough of the market.
Grading 2025 Predictions: What CRE Got Right And Wrong This Year
“Uncertainty” may have been the word of the year for the CRE industry and the wider business community.
Few could have predicted how quickly and completely the second Trump administration would reshape the economy, or how often the administration’s priorities would change, especially when it came to tariff policy.
Given this, one would assume that predictions made in December 2024 for what was to come for commercial real estate in 2025 may now be hopelessly antiquated.
However, CRE professionals who shared their 2025 predictions with Bisnow were able to read the tea leaves accurately when it came to office vacancy recovery, increased investment in CRE and data center growth.
The 12 Bisnow Stories Readers Loved Best In 2025
CRE was all about the pain this year, apparently.
Bisnow’s list of most-clicked stories in 2025 is filled with bankruptcies, layoffs, frozen capital and a frozen government.
Want to feel really good at the prospect of a better 2026? Take a trip down memory lane with us.
Finance And Technology Companies Dominate 2025's 7 Biggest Office Leases In The U.S.
There are a few things that are certain in the world outside of death and taxes: finance and insurance as well as technology companies accounting for the biggest chunks of office leasing in any given year.
Tenants from these sectors accounted for half of 2025's large office leasing volume in the nation’s biggest markets, according to data provided to Bisnow by Colliers.
2025 Was The Year Of The Office Haircut, But The Pain May Bring Gain
Office buildings finally started trading hands this year after a long dry spell brought on by elevated interest rates and a gaping gulch between buyer and seller price expectations.
While thousands of office sales in some of the country’s hardest-hit markets were welcomed as a sign that a long-awaited rebound might finally be on the way, the sales also represented sometimes bone-deep discounts for sellers trying to offload underperforming assets. As 2025 draws to a close, however, the tide might be turning.
3 Reasons Why You Couldn't Ignore Data Centers In 2025
The past 12 months represented an inflection point for the data center sector, as unprecedented investment transformed the once-niche asset class into the main engine of U.S. economic growth.
But this newfound prominence has brought intense political scrutiny and mounting fears that the artificial intelligence-driven data center gold rush may soon come to a screeching halt.
As 2025 ends with record data center growth and the industry firmly in the public consciousness to a degree that was unimaginable just five years ago, it seems incongruous that the start of the year was marked by uncertainty and even panic about the sector’s future.
How 2025's Political Reset Shifted The Stage For Commercial Real Estate
President Donald Trump didn't waste any time wading into commercial real estate in his second term, signing a two-paragraph executive order sending federal workers back to the office just hours after being sworn in.
Beyond the immediate implications for commercial real estate, the move signaled something more abstract: A real estate developer and investor was back in the White House.
Inside A 'Chaotic' Year For The Federal Office Portfolio — And What Comes Next
The commercial real estate sector came into the year bracing for drastic cuts to the footprint of the largest occupier of U.S. office space: the federal government.
President Donald Trump in his first days in office took big, unconventional steps to swiftly reduce the government's massive nationwide office portfolio. These dizzying actions grabbed headlines for weeks and threw the industry into panic.
In the months after, those initial moves were mostly walked back.
How Power, Politics And AI Will Shape Data Center Development In 2026
If 2025 was the year data centers became unavoidable, 2026 may be the year that the future of the sector’s AI boom cycle comes into clearer focus.
More than 25 leaders from across the data center industry told Bisnow about their predictions for the trends, changes and challenges that will shape the data center landscape in the year ahead. While the details revealed in their crystal balls varied, common themes emerged about the industry's future.
BISNOW SURVEY: Deal Volume And Rate Cuts Are Coming, But The Easy Part Ends There
After surviving 2025, a majority of Bisnow readers are ready to get more in the deal mix in ‘26.
More than two-thirds of respondents to Bisnow’s 2026 predictions survey expect commercial real estate activity will be higher this year than it was in 2025. And more than 93% of the close to 1,000 readers who answered the survey believe there are more interest rate cuts on the horizon.
But readers also have concerns for the year ahead.
Global CRE's Biggest 2026 Stress Tests Are Already On The Calendar
The most important forces shaping commercial real estate in 2026 aren’t totally theoretical.
They’re already scheduled.
CRE is still squarely in the “Uncertainty Era,” and 2026 will surely bring surprises. Some perils never show up on a calendar — geopolitical flare-ups, domestic political drama, economic policy blunders or market breaks that force fast repricing. But the industry finally has a moderately clear view of where the hits might come from this year.
From AI Data Centers To Sun Belt Apartments, Here Are 7 CRE Predictions For 2026
After a year clouded with uncertainty, the commercial real estate market is unlikely to clear up entirely in 2026, but bright spots may emerge in pockets of the industry.
Several top commercial real estate experts shared predictions with Bisnow for how the market will change this year. Their forecasts include shifts that could benefit industry players — like a resurgence for Sun Belt apartments and a 10% jump in capital markets deal volume.
But some sectors could face new problems, such as retail closures due to slipping consumer spending.
48 CRE Insiders On The Decisions That Will Make — Or Break — 2026
There’s always a temptation to declare the comeback.
To circle a date. To call the bottom.
Every time commercial real estate survives a rough patch, as it did in 2025, it tends to reach for a familiar comfort: the belief that the next up cycle will look like the last.
Well, that instinct seems to be missing this year, and that absence may be the story of 2026.
Because when you strip away the noise and read what CRE’s most experienced global operators are actually wrestling with right now, certainty is nowhere to be found.
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10 Stories That Defined Atlanta CRE In 2025
Atlanta’s commercial real estate sector got unusually political this year.
Between data center blowback and immigration raids, the CRE community often found itself factoring the day’s headlines into future plans.
Atlanta’s CRE scene was also full of intrigue, with a disgraced investor sentenced for embezzling millions to gain a piece of the Buckhead office market and a mystery developer touting an audacious plan for a Downtown Atlanta mixed-use development.
Here are the 10 stories that shaped Atlanta’s commercial real estate market in 2025.
The 9 Largest Eastern Pennsylvania Industrial Groundbreakings Of 2025
Eastern Pennsylvania has been a poster child for the postpandemic warehouse construction blitz.
That development boom slowed slightly this year, with 32 new projects breaking ground, down from 35 in 2024 and 36 in 2023, according to Lee & Associates. But developers still managed to put shovels in the dirt on some big project sites in 2025.
A Retrospective Look At The 7 Stories Chicago CRE Had Its Eyes On In 2025
At the beginning of the year, Bisnow released an article with the seven biggest storylines Chicago CRE was tracking throughout 2025.
Among multiple key topics, industry insiders wanted to keep tabs on megadevelopments, moneymaking opportunities in multifamily and a Central Loop revival.
Here's what happened with those storylines.
London Cooling: 12 Big Deals Of Christmas Reveal Mixed Sentiment
The past 12 months might be remembered as a quietly interesting year, or an interestingly quiet one.
Real estate investment in London has risen for the second year in a row as appetite for the capital’s assets returns, according to CBRE. But although it predicts that total investment is set to top £14B in 2025, that’s below the 10-year average of £18.1B — albeit significantly higher than in 2023 and 2024. The prospect of lower interest rates, new provisions to boost housebuilding and increasing return-to-office mandates have helped build confidence.
All The Records South Florida CRE Broke In 2025
Miamians may not know how to function in a season other than summer or drive across town without hitting traffic, but if there’s one thing they’ve mastered, it's going big or going home.
And this year, South Florida’s commercial real estate did just that, with seven of the biggest or most expensive deals in the market's history struck in 2025.
These deals span all sectors — the largest sales, leases and loans by neighborhood, across the tri-county area and, in some cases, the entire state.
Chicago Office Finally Thawed In 2025. Here Are The Deals That Prove It
Chicago office activity in 2025 finally thawed from its glacial pace over the past two years, though buildings still sold at significant discounts and leasing activity remained muted.
Here are the top office deals in the Chicago area this year, with data courtesy of Colliers. Sales are ranked by total sales prices, and leases are ordered by square footage.
8 Stories That Permeated D.C.'s CRE Landscape In 2025
For the commercial real estate sector, 2025 brought a deluge of disruptions, distress and some market-shaking deals to the District of Columbia.
As the year comes to a close, Bisnow D.C. is rewinding the tape on the biggest, most impactful stories of the year — the moments and trends that we’ll remember long into 2026 and beyond.
The 4 CRE Trends That Defined 2025 For Dallas-Fort Worth
Growth was the common denominator for nearly all commercial real estate sectors in Dallas-Fort Worth throughout the past year.
The metro emerged as a growing financial hub with an expanding population that fueled retail growth, the multifamily pipeline and development in the region’s southern sector.
'Building Out On This Promise': Manufacturing Brings Houston's Biggest CRE Wins In 2025
Manufacturing and life sciences investments, particularly Eli Lilly’s $6.5M monster pharmaceutical production facility, provided the biggest reasons for Houston’s commercial real estate industry to be optimistic in 2025.
Professionals in the office, retail and multifamily asset classes had to look a little harder for data points to energize their entry into 2026, though limited construction pipelines and solid performance at the top end of the market bolstered rental rates and occupancies.
Manhattan Office Leasing Hit 43M SF In Year That Redefined The Market
As the lights get taken down and the trees get placed by the curb, final 2025 market data has started to be tallied and published. The early returns show the balance of power in the world's most valuable office market has shifted back to landlords.
Companies signed roughly 43M SF of leases for Manhattan office space last year, according to brokerage firm Savills. That is the most of any year since 2014 and 20% more than 2024.
