Propmodo’s Top 10 Commercial Real Estate Articles of 2025

• Top of the top: From federal lease cuts to housing policy to AI this year’s top stories showed what our readers were most interested in this year.

• Lone Star stagnation: Why is Dallas’s downtown office market is lagging behind booming suburban neighborhoods?

• Looking west: A new wave of Chinese REITs are already showing strong interest in Bay Area properties.

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

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Propmodo’s Top 10 Commercial Real Estate Articles of 2025

As the year comes to a close, our most-read stories offer a clear signal about what mattered most to Propmodo readers. From federal lease cuts and housing policy to AI, architecture, and the culture of real estate wealth, the articles that rose to the top reflected an industry navigating uncertainty, disruption, and opportunity all at once.

Readers gravitated toward pieces that delivered clarity—hard data on government decisions, practical insight into emerging technologies, and grounded analysis of where capital and policy are colliding. At the same time, there was strong interest in stories that stepped back from the headlines to examine design, history, and the human side of the business.

Taken together, this year’s most-read articles capture a market balancing disruption with adaptation, and a readership looking beyond the noise for context, perspective, and signals about what comes next.

Overheard

Office Vacancy and Suburban Shift Redraw the Dallas Real Estate Map

Dallas illustrates a striking split in modern urban real estate. The wider metropolitan area is adding jobs and population, yet its historic downtown office district has become a weak spot as tenants opt for newer, amenity-rich suburban locations. Vacancy rates downtown have climbed into the high 20s while nearby submarkets like Uptown show far lower vacancy and strong leasing momentum as firms chase modern space, walkability and lifestyle attributes that older towers struggle to match. Major employers are reassessing their footprints and, in some cases, relocating or reducing space in the central business district in favor of environments they believe will better attract and retain talent.

This divergence reflects deeper structural shifts in office demand. Much of downtown’s stock was built in the 1970s and 80s and now feels outdated next to new product with flexible layouts, integrated amenities and transit connections that align with post-pandemic workplace expectations. The economic case for staying in aging towers erodes when tenants can lease fresh space nearby at similar rents and offer employees a more dynamic urban experience. Add in concerns about perception of safety, quality-of-place and experiential draw, and the downtown core falls further behind even as the broader city posts job and population gains.

For owners, investors and capital allocators this growing divide has real consequences. Downtown office buildings may trade at discounts relative to newer suburban assets and carry higher vacancy risk, putting pressure on cash flow and valuations. That will likely accelerate conversations about adaptive reuse, ownership repositioning and amenity investments to make downtown assets more competitive. At the same time, the uptick in suburban leasing reinforces where developers and institutional investors see the strongest tenant demand today. How downtown Dallas adapts (either through conversions to residential use or upgrades to existing office buildings) will help determine whether its historic core regains momentum or cedes primacy to better-performing submarkets.

Bay Area Real Estate Is the Big Winner of China’s REIT Growth

China’s real estate investment trust market is entering a new chapter as regulators widen eligibility to include commercial property types like office buildings, shopping centers, and hotels. Assets in the Greater Bay Area are expected to be among the most sought after when the next wave of commercial real estate investment trusts begins to list over the next couple of years. By late 2025 China already had nearly 80 C-REITs that raised more than 200 billion yuan, and recent regulatory updates broaden what kinds of real estate can be securitized into REIT structures. The shift aligns with broader policy goals to boost urban development and strengthen the role of REITs in supporting the real economy.

The drive toward a more diverse C-REIT market reflects years of evolution. China’s pilot REIT market began in 2021 focused largely on infrastructure assets. With the updated eligibility list from the National Development and Reform Commission, commercial real estate now joins sectors like industrial estates, data centers and subsidized rental housing. That expansion is part of a broader trend where Chinese developers and policymakers lean into recurring income models instead of relying on one-time sales. The market’s quick growth, an 85 percent increase in aggregate value last year, put it among the top three REIT markets in Asia for the first time, even while it remains much smaller and younger than mature REIT markets in the U.S. and Japan.

For real estate investors and capital allocators, the focus on Greater Bay Area properties and the widening of eligible asset classes in C-REITs could have meaningful implications. If these REITs attract strong demand, they may offer a new way to channel domestic and international capital into Chinese commercial property, shifting some capital away from traditional development models. The emphasis on assets in rapidly growing urban nodes also signals where recurring income potential is highest. At the same time, investors accustomed to the transparency and liquidity of established REIT markets will be watching how governance, disclosure standards and yield performance compare as China’s market matures. In time the success or failure of these early commercial C-REITs, particularly in crowded markets like the Greater Bay Area, may shape confidence in China’s broader move to build a deep, diversified and investable real estate investment trust ecosystem.

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