Global office forecast: Is the world overbuilding?

Across the globe, an unprecedented office building boom is under way with more than 700 million square feet of space under construction that will deliver between now and the end of 2019, Cushman & Wakefield’s Global Office Forecast reports.

That’s the equivalent of re-creating five cities worth of office inventory — Washington, D.C., Dallas, London, Singapore and Shanghai — over the next three years.

The report details economic drivers, supply and demand forecasts, and prospects for rent growth in more than 100 cities around the world.

Although demand, as well as job growth, will remain healthy through 2019, totaling approximately 520 million square feet, it will fall far short of supply, which will cause vacancy to rise in most cities around the world. From that perspective, the world is overbuilding.

Or, not. It also has been abundantly