CRE in 2025: More Return to Office, More Shopping Centers

This year in commercial real estate, the office and retail sectors continued to recover post-pandemic, according to Placer.ai Snapshots.   

Return to Office 

In 2025, RTO trends continued to grow. Nationally, New York City and Miami led the way for long-term office recovery. 

Over the last six years, New York City has experienced a -11.9% office recovery rate for top-tier offices, while Miami has seen a -16.2% rate. This rate of recovery is significantly higher than cities like Denver (-45.2%) and San Francisco (-46.6%). 

Visits to the office were especially high among employees who lived within a five-mile radius. In H1 2025, the share of office visits from these employees was 38.5%, a slight increase from 38.1% the previous year.  

Shopping Center Recovery 

Although visits to shopping centers remain below pre-pandemic levels, statistics indicate the shopping center industry is recovering. As of H1 2025, the rate of visits to shopping centers was only -0.4% compared to H1 2019, and compared to H1 2024, they were up 1.0%. 

Year over year, visits to indoor malls saw the biggest leap in 2025 (1.6%), followed by open-air shopping centers (0.4%). Outlet malls continue to lag behind, having seen the biggest decrease compared to H1 2019 (-10.5%). As of H1 2025, visits to outlet malls remained low, with a year-over-year change of -0.9%.