Finance & economics | Long time coming

American office delinquencies are shooting up

How worried should investors be?

A retail advertisement is displayed in midtown Manhattan
Photograph: Getty Images
|Washington, DC

American offices often break records. Tech firms mark their progress with ever more outlandish designs. Manhattan blocks vie to be the tallest. This year, though, a worse kind of record has been broken. Offices have hit a 20.1% vacancy rate, according to Moody’s, which is the highest since 1979, when the rating agency began to keep track.

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This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Long time coming”

From the September 7th 2024 edition

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