Ray Wong, Vice President of Data Operations for Altus Group, is our invitee once again in this episode. Today, he’ll be talking about office space in the Toronto and Vancouver markets with Aaron and Adam.
We’ll start with Ray going through some current office statistics compared to those of a year ago, most of which are positive indicators. He talks about how office trends differ between downtown cores and the suburbs, and later discusses some big transactions that have happened in 2021. We also hear about how Altus is currently utilizing their office space.
Topics covered include:
- Are landlords fearful of a depleting tenant base?
- Flexibility that tenants are looking for, even since before the pandemic.
- Factors that will lead to less vacancy over the next few years.
- How numbers compare in Q2 2020 to Q2 2021.
- The increase in the number showings and inquiries to brokers, and what this indicates.
- Trends in renting office space downtown versus in the suburbs.
- Seeing the overall availability of sublet spaces as a percentage of available space decreasing.
- Scotiabank’s lease renewal in Toronto and what Ray takes away from this.
- The potential sale of Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto.
- How vacancy is impacting office rents right now.
- The effects of people using transit less but driving more.
- What Ray predicts will happen in the market in the remainder of 2021.
- How Altus is approaching the return to the office.
More about our guest…
Ray is the Vice President of Data Operations for Altus Group’s Data Solutions team. Overseeing 60+ researchers across Canada, Ray’s primary responsibility is to ensure data collection is all encompassing, reliable and accurate and that it adheres to the Altus Group data governance guidelines. Ray works closely with both internal and external clients to ensure the information meets their needs and that it is both accurate and timely. He also regularly presents on key market trends to clients and at industry events.
Prior to joining Altus Group, Ray was the Head of Research for CBRE Canada. He was responsible for the collection of market intelligence and publishing marketing market reports on a regular basis. Ray interacted with both internal and external clients in respect to presenting and discussing real estate information, trends and analysis. He initiated and introduced the CBRE Econometric Real Estate Forecasting model in Canada for office and industrial real estate.
Ray is regularly asked to comment on the real estate market in various print, radio and online news publications.
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