FIRST DRAFT LIVE: Deloitte Vice Chair Sally Ann Flood Breaks Down The Firm's Annual CRE Survey

While 2025 may have started as an optimistic year for commercial real estate, sentiments have shifted slightly as we inch closer to 2026. 

Deloitte's annual survey of 850 commercial real estate executives, released at the end of September, found that the unpredictable global macro environment has some feeling that the market recovery is on pause.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however: 83% of respondents expect their revenues to improve by the end of the year, and 65% of the executives surveyed said they expect market conditions, including rental rates, leasing activity, vacancies and cost of capital, to improve through next year.

So what does the survey really mean for CRE? To answer that question, Bisnow Editor-in-Chief Mark Bonner spoke with Deloitte Vice Chair and U.S. Real Estate Sector Leader Sally Ann Flood on this week’s First Draft Live. 

Flood said the major takeaway from the survey is that the technology revolution is here for real estate. 

“I really believe this is the time that we can embrace it and really see improvements to the bottom line by adopting the technology,” she said. 

As for the state of the office market, an asset class that the Deloitte survey found to be experiencing renewed owner and investor interest, Flood said that while office may be on an uptick, the recovery will take some time as long as there are still foreclosed properties on the sidelines.

“Until we see those assets come back out onto the market, we’re not really going to see the big change,” she said. “Is it going to be a quick uptick? No. I think it’ll be slow.”

View the full conversation below: