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Avison Report Offers Framework for Mapping Post-Pandemic “New Normal”
The day-to-day reality presented by the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t the new normal, Avison Young makes clear in a new report. Titled “Evaluating the ‘New Normal’ for Commercial Real Estate,” the report establishes a framework for sorting out the impacts of the crisis that will last beyond the immediate need to confront the pandemic.
“There will be many implications that arise from the current crisis,” the report states. “The world will never be the same again, and real estate will be affected along with every other aspect of business, economics and society.”
The report identifies three types of impact which could become embedded in a “new normal,” Avison Young points out. They include:
• Impacts which would probably have happened anyway, but which have been accentuated or accelerated by COVID-19; “these are the impacts about which we can be most confident in predicting they will endure.”
• Those which will happen, or stop happening, in the future “because we have learned something positive from our COVID-19 experience; we can also be reasonably confident that such improvements will endure to some degree.”
• Changes which are driven by fear of COVID-19 itself or the recurrence of an infectious disease pandemic. “Predictions along these lines rest on the assumption that avoidance of infection from virus pandemics will be a primary driver of behavior in the future,” says Avison Young. “We believe these should be treated with a greater degree of caution because it is simply too early to judge the validity of this speculation.”
For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Paul Bubny
- ◦Economy
