Measarabl’s New CEO on Sustainability in Commercial Real Estate Despite Political Headwinds

• Sustainability sustains: Despite political pushback, sustainability continues to gain traction in commercial real estate.

• Betting on real estate: Polymarket is launching real estate prediction markets that allow users to bet on property-related outcomes.

• Changing Washington: Washington D.C.’s conversion-friendly policies are driving a wave of office-to-housing projects.

• Multifamily outlook webinar: Demand will be steady in 2026, but margins are thinner and execution matters more than ever. Sign up

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Energy & Sustainability

Measarabl’s New CEO on Sustainability in Commercial Real Estate Despite Political Headwinds

Political pushback against ESG may be getting louder, but in commercial real estate it’s increasingly disconnected from how buildings actually compete and hold value. Sustainability has moved out of the ideological bucket and into day-to-day operations and underwriting. What was once treated as a soft signal or optional add-on is now showing up in valuations, liquidity discussions, and investment committee conversations because it directly affects how assets perform over time.

That shift has been driven less by regulation and more by economics. Rising energy costs have forced owners to pay closer attention to efficiency regardless of who is in office, while a growing body of data has strengthened the financial case for sustainable buildings. Higher rents, lower vacancy, and sale premiums have reframed the conversation away from whether sustainability matters to how quickly the returns show up and how patient the capital needs to be. At the same time, large institutional investors and insurers are treating sustainability data as a risk-management tool, not a moral stance, as they try to understand long-term exposure tied to climate, regulation, and operating volatility.

Human capital is reinforcing the trend. Buildings increasingly function as part of the employer value proposition, especially for younger workers who expect sustainability to be built into the spaces they occupy. While the industry still debates the imperfections of sustainability data, the bigger risk now is waiting for perfect information and falling behind. The forces pushing sustainability forward—energy costs, capital markets, insurance scrutiny, and talent dynamics—are structural, not political, suggesting that sustainability is no longer a phase in commercial real estate but a permanent feature of how value is created and protected.

Overheard

Polymarket Brings Prediction Markets into Real Estate

Polymarket, an open prediction market, has partnered with real estate tokenization platform Parcl to launch a suite of real estate prediction markets. These markets allow participants to take positions on future real estate outcomes such as changes in home price indices, construction activity or even policy actions. The model treats information and expectations as tradable assets, letting a dispersed crowd express views about where markets are heading in a way that sits between sentiment polling and conventional derivatives.

By letting users put real money behind forecasts, prediction markets can surface collective expectations in real time. Traditional real estate metrics like price indices, permit counts, and absorption rates are released with lags, leaving investors to guess at trends between published data points. These new markets aim to offer continuous forward guidance via tradeable probabilities that reflect changing views as conditions shift. In theory, markets that allow bets on price trends or macro policy outcomes could become a complementary signal for allocators trying to interpret ambiguous data, particularly in a world where central bank actions, immigration shifts and supply constraints can change outlooks overnight.

There are important caveats. Polymarket is still not available in many places and the still-evolving legal status of decentralized trading platforms can limit participation. Despite these limitations, integrating prediction markets with property outlooks could provide a valuable data point of public opinion about real estate forecasts. If these markets gain traction, they could influence how capital is allocated, how risk is hedged and how sentiment is incorporated into investment models—especially among sophisticated players looking for leading indicators rather than rear-view benchmarks.

D.C.'s Office Woes Create Opportunity for Conversions

The U.S. condo market is confronting its most pronounced downturn in over a decade, with prices slipping and sales cooling sharply in many metropolitan areas. In late 2025, condo resale prices fell noticeably year-over-year even as single-family home values showed more stability. That divergence reflects a mix of rising ownership costs, aging inventories and uneven buyer demand. Condos that once sold briskly are now sitting longer on the market and frequently trading below their prior sale price, a sign that both end users and investors are rethinking the calculus of urban multifamily living.

A central factor dragging on condos is the ballooning cost of ownership. Many association fees have surged as condo boards grapple with higher insurance premiums, especially in regions prone to natural disasters, and escalating maintenance and capital repair obligations. In some buildings the cost of association assessments plus insurance now adds thousands of dollars per year to the cost of owning a unit, trimming the affordability cushion that once made condos attractive to first-time buyers and young professionals. That cost pressure has been especially acute in older or coastal buildings where structural repairs and higher risk profiles drive fees upward, leaving buyers wary and sellers forced to adjust price expectations downward to compensate.

Looking ahead, the question for investors is whether these costs stabilize or continue climbing. Insurance premiums for multifamily and condo buildings have already risen at double-digit annual rates in several coastal and Sun Belt markets, and industry forecasts suggest elevated catastrophe risk could keep pressure on pricing through the next few policy cycles. At the same time, deferred maintenance from the last decade is colliding with stricter safety standards, meaning capital calls and special assessments are likely to become more common. If HOA fees and insurance continue to outpace wage and rent growth, condos may struggle to regain pricing power, particularly in older urban buildings. That dynamic could suppress values longer than past downturns and push buyers and capital toward newer assets, rental housing, or markets where operating costs are easier to predict.

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