The world has gone through an unprecedented amount of rapid change over the last 12 months. The impact of COVID-19 and successive lockdowns has caused people’s lifestyles and working habits to adapt considerably, and even with the justified optimism caused by the rollout of the vaccine, it is clear that there is no magic “reset” button. Now, more than a year on from the start of the pandemic and as we continue on the roadmap to a “new normal”, there are many questions about what this “normal” will look like and how many of these changes will remain permanent, even once the pandemic has subsided.

This lack of certainty and the divergence of views on this topic can pose difficult questions for investors, especially in the real estate sector. For example, in the same week that the precipitous rise in remote working was referred to by Goldman Sachs’ CEO as an “aberration”, HSBC committed to shrink its office footprint by approximately 40 percent in the future,