For much of the past decade, global real estate has cycled through confident obituaries. Retail was the first, declared structurally impaired across developed markets, only to be quietly repriced by patient capital that recognised the gap between sentiment and fundamentals.
Now, office is in a similar phase. Vacancy trends in New York, San Francisco, and London, where hybrid work and ageing stock have combined to weaken demand, have prompted pundits to proclaim its decline. Yet even within these markets, capital is signalling a more nuanced reality. The recent commitment by JPMorgan Chase to a 3 million sq. ft headquarters at Canary Wharf in the U.K., bringing 12,000 employees into a single, purpose-built environment, suggests not retreat, but recalibration.
The office, repriced and reimagined
What is emerging is not the traditional office, but something more deliberate: the ‘urban knowledge campus’. Over the past decade, knowledge-led firms have redefined the office as a platform for collaboration, learning and cultural cohesion rather than a default place of work. Early expressions appeared in suburban campuses; more recently, they have migrated into dense, transit-linked urban clusters integrating workspace with amenities and the public realm.
The integrated, mixed-use environment at Roppongi Hills (Tokyo) in the early 2000s anticipated this model combining workspace, culture, retail, and residential density to anchor talent within a single ecosystem. The pandemic did not create this shift, but accelerated it. As remote work became viable, the office was forced to justify its existence. Commodity space weakened, high-quality, experience-led environments did not. This bifurcation is now evident globally. Occupiers are not abandoning office but concentrating into fewer, higher-quality locations that function as integrated knowledge hubs. The question is no longer whether demand exists, but what form of office continues to matter.
Repricing in the West, expansion in the East
It is at this point that the global narrative diverges in its implications. In developed markets, the shift towards higher-quality office is largely corrective—demand consolidating against excess supply and ageing stock. In emerging markets, the same shift is unfolding in a fundamentally different context. Economies such as India are not working through oversupply, they are building institutional-grade capacity. India recorded over 85 million sq. ft of gross office leasing in 2025, with momentum continuing into early 2026, levels that point to expansion anchored in urbanisation, workforce formalisation and enterprise growth.
Demand is already aligned to the future form of office. It is concentrated in Grade A environments that resemble the knowledge campus model. In cities such as Mumbai, vacancy in premium assets remains in the 7-10% range even as rents firm, reflecting a market where occupiers are upgrading rather than exiting. Work-from-home, often positioned as a structural disruptor, has limited translation here. It remains a selective privilege rather than a systemic shift, constrained by housing formats, commute patterns, and the continued centrality of CBDs as talent hubs. No widespread corporate policy has displaced the office.
The strategic case for capital
For capital, this divergence between correction-led developed markets and growth-led emerging markets directly shapes return outcomes. In markets where demand is consolidating against excess supply, returns are increasingly driven by repricing risk and asset selection within a shrinking pool of relevant stock. In emerging markets, the equation is different. Demand is expanding into a structurally constrained supply of institutional-grade assets, creating embedded pricing power and a clearer path
to income growth. The result is a return profile less about recovery and more about capture—of growth, yield stability, and development-led upside.
The scarcity of true Grade A stock reinforces this dynamic. Institutional-grade supply remains thin relative to demand from multinational occupiers and a rapidly expanding domestic corporate base. Global Capability Centres, which accounted for 44% of absorption in Q12026, further anchor this demand with requirements aligned to the knowledge campus format—large floor plates, integrated infrastructure and long-term commitments.
This scarcity expands the opportunity set. Beyond core assets, a credible value-add thesis exists in repositioning, aggregation and development, effectively manufacturing institutional-grade product into a demand-rich market. At the same time, the asset class allows for deliberate structuring of risk. Long-dated anchor leases, pre-leasing and phased development can meaningfully de-risk exposure while preserving upside. Exit visibility, once a constraint, has improved materially. The maturation of REIT markets in India has created a credible and increasingly liquid pathway for capital recycling, supported by growing domestic institutional participation. The investment ecosystem is more complete, even if global capital has yet to fully reprice it.
The constraints that matter
None of this, however, eliminates risk. Currency remains a structural consideration, with hedging costs materially affecting realised returns. Execution risk is more fundamental. Land aggregation, regulatory navigation and development delivery require genuine on-the-ground capability. This is not a market where capital can be passively deployed. Capital cannot be parachuted in. It rewards those with “cement under the nails”—genuine local operating capability, not just financial engineering. The ability to build and operate a high-quality, integrated knowledge campus is itself a differentiator.
Technology introduces a further layer of complexity. In the near term, expansion by multinational firms continues to support demand for premium office environments. Over the medium term, underwriting must account for potential headcount optimisation driven by artificial intelligence. But headcount and footprint are not the same thing. The knowledge campus is a platform for collaboration, cultural and talent cohesion—functions AI enhances rather than replace. Where linear cognitive work is automated, residual demand tends to concentrate into fewer, higher-quality environments, reinforcing the flight-to-quality dynamic already underway. The same logic applies to GCCs—AI capability buildout is actively driving expansion, not rationalising it. Yet the displacement curve in emerging markets is likely to be slower, given that knowledge worker penetration is still increasing and the formal office economy is still being built.
The question is no longer whether to allocate to office in emerging markets. The structural case is evident in the data, in occupier behaviour and in the evolution of capital markets. It is whether the platform is built to execute it. Where patient capital, local execution capability and structuring precision converge, the opportunity is compelling, and still, in many cases, mispriced. Where they do not, the same market will make that gap immediately visible.
(The author is a global real estate investor and capital strategist. Views are personal.)