It’s difficult to think of a more turbulent time in real estate than the two and half years since the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic prompted real estate investors to reconsider some of the foundational assumptions undergirding markets. Investors and occupiers quickly soured on major gateway metros that drove growth nationally during the past several decades, while simultaneously turning their attention to smaller and more affordable markets.

In the wake of the demise of pre-pandemic investment certainties, new themes emerged. All of this drove a realignment in demographics, capital markets, real estate investment and development activity. But signs are emerging that some “new normal” investment theses that emerged during the pandemic went too far and that risks have built up in strategies in vogue during the pandemic. This article reviews changes in demographics and real estate economics during the past two and a half years, concluding with an anal