More than 18 months since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, we are still feeling its effects and the changes it has brought to everyday life. Investors in real estate remain cautious, waiting for the dust to settle — seeing how the working-from-home trend continues to play out, and how it might affect the office sector, for example.
But despite this continued uncertainty, property prices in some areas are rising. According to transaction-based price indices from Real Capital Analytics (RCA), office prices increased by 8.5 percent in central Paris, 4.3 percent in Central London and 2.7 percent in Boston in the 12 months through to March. At the same time, other cities have experienced big price reductions, according to the RCA Commercial Property Prices Indices (RCA CPPI), and RCA data reveals that, during the same period, office investment as a whole dropped 49 percent in the Americas; 44 percent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and by 14 percent in the Asi