Notes on buildings, tenants, and the market.

Office utilization hit 53% in 2026. That’s up from 38% a year ago and 35% the year before. CBRE’s 2026 Global Workplace and Occupancy Insights found that the #1 reason employees show up is to collaborate with colleagues.

Office investment sales hit $20.5 billion in the first quarter of 2026. That’s up 38.6% from the same quarter last year, per Avison Young’s latest report.

New research from OfficeSpace Software covers 954 organizations, 3.9 million in-office employees, and 116 million square feet of office.

Propmodo ran a piece this week called “The End of Extend and Pretend.” It’s the cleanest framing I’ve seen on what’s about to happen.

Durst Organization just put 600,000 square feet on the market at 114 West 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan. A 26-story, LEED Gold tower built in 1989.

Cushman & Wakefield dropped a report this month that should end the “AI is going to gut office demand” trade for good.

Hudson Pacific Properties reported Q1 2026 results on Wednesday. The headline numbers were straightforwardly good.

European asset managers have more tenant data than ever. Most of it is lagging, siloed, and arriving too late. Here’s how the best EMEA portfolios are changing that.

Bisnow dropped the headline of the year this week. U.S. office tenants signed roughly 120 million square feet of new leases in Q1 2026. Up 25% over Q1 2025.

Tenant Health is the leading indicator your portfolio has been missing. Here’s what it measures, why it matters, and how the best operators are using it.

6.6 million square feet of office space converted. Almost 4,000 housing units delivered. Another 1,500 in the pipeline. Roughly 30 landmark buildings repurposed.

Most CRE portfolios don’t measure tenant churn until it’s already happened. Here’s what the research says about why tenants leave and when the signals appear.

Gensler’s 2026 Global Workplace Survey landed last week. 30% of office workers are now AI power users, meaning they use AI tools at home and at work.

London’s West End and City landlords are using experience infrastructure to defend rental premiums and drive renewals. Here’s what the rest of the world should learn from them.

Experiential real estate isn’t just a design trend. The buildings investing in experience infrastructure are posting measurable gains in retention, NOI, and renewal rates.

People aren’t going in to eat lunch or hang out. They’re going in to meet, collaborate, and use the parts of the building they can’t replicate at home.

In London, Paris, and Amsterdam, the Experience Gap is widening fast. The landlords closing it aren’t waiting on the market.

JLL just published its Q1 2026 U.S. Office Market Dynamics report. One number buried on page six tells you more about the state of office than everything else in the document combined.

Amenity competition in CRE is commoditising fast. The buildings winning on retention have moved beyond features to something harder to copy: membership infrastructure.

BlackRock and JP Morgan are both betting billions on London offices. The vacancy headlines are missing the real story about where the market is heading.