The Next Workplace Blueprint Requires a Technology-Centric Approach

• For data, by data: Workplaces need to be purposefully designed in a way that allows their owners and users to take full advantage of the data that they create.

• Builders’ dilemma: Homebuilders’ rate buydowns and price cuts have failed to revive demand, driving up inventories and exposing deeper housing market troubles.

• Senior moment: A large senior housing acquisition provides signs of a senior housing rebound, driven by aging demographics, rising rents, and limited new supply.

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Perspectives

The Next Workplace Blueprint Requires a Technology-Centric Approach

The workplace is shifting from a static physical setting into a living digital ecosystem. Real estate teams, once focused on square footage and leases, are now leaning on data to understand how space actually works. High-resolution insights from occupancy sensors, collaboration tools, and environmental systems are transforming offices into responsive environments. These spaces can now self-adjust to changing conditions—altering lighting, temperature, and even cleaning schedules in real time—to improve both efficiency and employee well-being.

At the heart of this transformation is the network itself, which has evolved from a basic utility into the digital backbone of the modern workplace. With advanced wireless systems and connected sensors, companies can continuously monitor how every corner of a building is used. The resulting data helps organizations move beyond one-size-fits-all design, repurposing underused areas and optimizing layouts for productivity and sustainability. As artificial intelligence joins the mix, these systems are becoming predictive, automating adjustments before employees even notice a problem.

This data-driven approach is blurring the line between digital and physical space. Offices are no longer just places where work happens—they’re active participants in the work itself. AI agents can reroute meetings, rebalance room bookings, and orchestrate maintenance schedules automatically. Real estate, facilities, and IT teams are learning to collaborate around a shared flow of data, creating workplaces that learn and evolve over time. The result is a new model of the office—one defined less by walls and desks, and more by its capacity to adapt, optimize, and empower everyone who uses it.

Overheard

Home Builders Keep Cutting, Buyers Keep Waiting

Builders are running out of tricks. Even with mortgage-rate buydowns, cash incentives, and aggressive price cuts, new homes are sitting longer on the market. Inventories of completed but unsold homes are now near their highest level since the Great Recession, and analysts say many builders are quietly slowing new starts to avoid a glut. D.R. Horton, Lennar, and PulteGroup have all leaned heavily on rate buydowns to keep deals moving, offering buyers mortgages as low as 3.99%. But even those perks aren’t luring as many would-be homeowners as hoped.

The cracks are showing up in earnings and stock prices. Lennar recently missed revenue estimates and its shares slid about 3%, while PulteGroup reported new orders down 6% year-over-year and shrinking gross margins. The iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF is down roughly 10% from its summer highs as investors start to question whether the builders’ discount strategy is sustainable. Average selling prices are down 7% from their 2022 peaks, and incentives are now consuming more than 14% of some builders’ home values—a level last seen during the 2008 crash.

What’s playing out is less a collapse than a quiet standoff. Builders are betting that incentives will keep production lines moving until rates fall and demand rebounds, while buyers are holding out for lower prices or easier borrowing conditions. If this standoff persists into next spring, the balance sheets of even the biggest builders could start to look strained. The slowdown in new-home absorption isn’t just a builder problem—it’s a sign that affordability fatigue has finally caught up to the housing market.

Sonida’s $1.8 Billion Deal Strengthens a Rebounding Senior Housing Sector

Sonida Senior Living announced plans to acquire CNL Healthcare Properties in a $1.8 billion cash-and-stock deal that would create the eighth-largest senior housing operator in the U.S. The Dallas-based company expects the acquisition to close in the first half of 2026, combining more than 14,000 units across 153 independent living, assisted living, and memory-care communities nationwide. It marks the largest senior housing transaction since 2021 and underscores the renewed confidence in a sector that only recently emerged from years of pandemic-driven distress.

The turnaround in senior housing has been dramatic. After a period of oversupply and plunging occupancy during COVID-19, the industry is now riding a demographic wave as aging baby boomers fuel demand for care facilities. Construction of new communities has slowed to record lows, even as occupancy rates and rents climb—top operators are seeing rent growth between 6% and 8%, according to Green Street. Deal volume in 2025 has surged 67% year over year to $13 billion, signaling that investors are pivoting from survival to expansion. Sonida’s resurgence mirrors the industry’s trajectory: rescued by Conversant Capital’s investment during the pandemic, it has rebuilt occupancy and balance sheet strength to the point of acquiring 23 properties in the past 18 months.

For commercial real estate, Sonida’s $1.8 billion bet is another sign that the senior housing sector has moved from a recovery story to a growth narrative. The convergence of limited new supply, rising rents, and a massive incoming wave of older residents has turned senior living into one of the most compelling plays in today’s property market. Investors searching for stability in an uncertain rate environment are finding it here, in an asset class that blends housing fundamentals with healthcare resilience—a combination poised to reshape how capital allocates across the broader CRE landscape.

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Propmodo Daily is written and edited by Franco Faraudo with contributions from readers like you and the Propmodo team.

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