The biggest sign yet that everyone’s going back to the office… but don’t get too
Investors are pouring billions into New York City office towers in the biggest sign yet the work-from-home era is dead.
The surge in commercial real estate investment is the latest indicator landlords and skyscraper owners are betting that the remote work phenomenon will be a pandemic-inspired blip.
New York offices are now ‘back to pre-COVID levels of leasing’, according to Ran Eliasaf, founder and managing partner at Northwind Group, which has done over 300 commercial real estate transactions since 2008.
Robert Gilman, who leads the real estate group at accounting advisory company Anchin, said he believes this increased activity means most workers returned to the office this past week.
‘I’ve heard some stories where some of the firms have said, ‘Okay, it’s after Labor Day. Everyone’s back’,’ he said. ‘It will be interesting to really see where that foot traffic goes. I think it’s almost ‘follow the leader’.
‘In certain things in business, everybody wants to be the first. With asking people to come back to the office, nobody wanted to be the first because everybody was afraid that people will leave. But that’s that’s not happening now.’
Gilman said the owners of Class A buildings — the highest-quality buildings on the market — have been able to attract many more tenants over the last year or so, which has given them more reliable income streams for the first time since the pandemic.
The owners of at least four different Class A skyscrapers have raised $3 billion through the commercial mortgage-backed securities market to refinance their debts in recent weeks, according to the Financial Times.
Office space, especially in midtown Manhattan, has seen a huge resurgence over the last year, according to real estate expert Robert Gilman
Gilman, who leads the real estate group at accounting advisory company Anchin, said he believes this increased activity means most workers have returned to the office this week
Pictured: 1345 Sixth Avenue, where Blackstone secured $850 million in debt in May. The 625-foot, 50-story tower’s well known tenant will be Paul Weiss, a high-powered law firm
However, Eliasaf has warned that this won’t last forever, especially as companies begin using artificial intelligence to reduce their workforce, first eliminating entry-level positions.
‘I think the next two to three years are positive for offices. And I think beyond the next two to three years, we’re concerned that we’re going to see the long term effects of AI starting to impact office leasing,’ he said.
But as of this moment, landlords have the confidence to go to banks and renegotiate more favorable loan agreements.
‘I’m not going to say we’re back, or that commercial is back, but I’m starting to have a much better feeling that we’re closer, and especially in New York,’ Gilman told Daily Mail.
Law firms and financial services companies are leading the way in getting people back to the office after years of remote work. As such, they’re the ones gobbling up prime office space in New York, Gilman said.
Real estate developer Paramount raised $900 million in late July to refinance the debts of 1301 Sixth Avenue, which houses French bank Crédit Agricole and law firm Norton Rose.
A few blocks north, Blackstone secured $850 million in debt in May, including more than $600 million through the CMBS market, to invest in 1345 Sixth Avenue.
The 625-foot, 50-story tower is the future home of Paul Weiss, the high-powered law firm that President Donald Trump targeted with an executive order earlier this year.
Paul Weiss will pay about $81 million a year for the space, according to documents obtained by FT.
Apple’s New York City home opposite Penn Station was also refinanced by owner Vornado, raising $450 million in the process.
Ran Eliasaf, founder and managing partner at Northwind Group, warned that the New York office boom isn’t going to last forever. In the next two or three years, he expects a major contraction caused by artificial intelligence making many entry-level positions redundant
And the Durst Organization clinched a $1.3 billion deal to prop up the old Condé Nast and Skadden headquarters in Times Square.
Now, the building has offices leased to social media company TikTok and law firm Venable.
Borrowing tied to New York City offices in the CMBS market has reached a total of $11 billion this year so far, the highest level since 2021, which was before the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates.
Data from Placer.ai shows that this increased spending, plus a number of other factors such as stricter in-office mandates in New York, has translated into a massive increase in foot traffic to commercial buildings.
There were 1.3 percent more visits to offices in the Big Apple in July 2025 than there were in July 2019, before the pandemic forced most white-collar employees to work from home.
No other major city that Placer.ai tracks has had more people come through offices than the pre-COVID era, though Miami has almost completely recovered with just a 0.1 percent dip since July 2019.
According to Eliasaf, New York is unique in this respect because, among other factors, the city is once again growing, gaining 87,184 residents between 2023 and 2024.
He also pointed to the fact that Big Law and Wall Street, both industries centered in New York, have a huge appetite for office space and want to get their employees back in person.
There were 1.3 percent more visits to offices in the Big Apple in July 2025 than there were in July 2019, before the pandemic forced most white-collar employees to work from home
A stock photo of office workers is seen above
A stock photo of a woman working from home on her couch is seen above
But the biggest future challenge will be Artificial intelligence, with experts warning millions of jobs will be wiped out in the medium-term.
Dario Amodei, CEO of San Francisco–based AI giant Anthropic, has raised the alarm that up to half of all entry-level white-collar roles could disappear in the next one to five years. He warned the shake-up could send unemployment soaring to between 10 and 20 percent unless urgent steps are taken to prepare workers for the tidal wave of disruption.
Wall Street voices are echoing the fears. JPMorgan economist Murat Tasci said the country may be heading for a so-called ‘jobless recovery’, where entire swathes of knowledge workers – nearly 45 percent of U.S. household employment- face long-term structural unemployment. One of the first signs, he noted, is that joblessness among recent college graduates is already creeping higher.
The gloomy outlook is backed up by other global forecasts. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report found that 40 percent of employers expect to cut headcount once AI can automate roles, while Goldman Sachs estimates up to seven per cent of the U.S. workforce could ultimately be displaced if the technology is rolled out at scale.
Even more measured predictions paint a stark picture. Harvard Business School professor Christopher Stanton has calculated that around a third of the tasks performed in white-collar jobs can already be done by AI, putting millions of office workers on notice that their careers may be hanging in the balance.