What the rise of coworking means for the real estate industry

From freelancers to corporate teams, workers everywhere have embraced coworking spaces. The trend has many implications for how companies operate, but even more interesting is its impact on the world of commercial and office real estate.

Over the past decade, e-commerce offerings and home delivery services have flourished as traditional retail has declined. This has largely been the result of changes in consumer preferences — and that same phenomenon is driving shifts in the commercial and office real estate industry too.

Thanks to the decoupling of work and location in recent years, the flexible workspace industry is booming. According to projections from the coworking magazine Deskmag, 1.7 million people were working from approximately 19,000 coworking spaces worldwide by the end of 2018. Companies seeking to meet the demands of a more mobile workforce are rethinking traditional office setups and turning to coworking spaces to house their workers instead.

Coworking is ripping up the old playbook of real estate being a defensive asset class. Instead, with the brand premium aspect coworking adds, it’s becoming something more fluid…