United States. BOMA International President and Chief Operating Officer Henry Chamberlain said the real estate sector is in the process of reinventing itself across all sectors.
Chamberlain commented on this during his annual State of the Industry address at the 2022 BOMA International Conference and Expo, which was held June 25-28 in Nashville. He said different real estate sectors are reinventing themselves in different ways and highlighted three sectors (industrial, healthcare and office) and the ways in which each sector is changing more than two years after COVID-19 emerged.
Industrial: Rental rates have been rising, with vacancy rates still below 4%, Chamberlain noted. Construction is starting to slow down, but it remains at a historically high level. A newly launched BOMA deep dive, The Industrial Sector: Taking Stock of market Vitality, explores the opportunities and headwinds affecting this sector.
* Healthcare: Driven largely by baby boomers in need of medical care, the number of outpatient facilities has increased dramatically. Telemedicine is helping to decentralize health care delivery and changes when people come to their doctor's office. Overall, it's "a dynamic market that's doing extremely well," Chamberlain said, with vacancy rates averaging just over 8%.
* Office: The office sector may be reinventing itself more drastically than any real estate sector due to the need to attract people back to the office. This reinvention must include connected places and experiences, as well as safe and secure environments. "In a creative way, we're getting people back to their facility," Chamberlain said.
"At the end of the day, it's all about you," he added. "It's about the people in this room... [and] really figure out what's coming so we can design the offices, the industrial and medical facilities that people will want in the future."
