August 31, 2026
Retail is leading. Office is splitting. The Sunbelt is not one trade.
The broadest read on commercial real estate right now comes from Integra Realty Resources’ 2026 Mid-Year Viewpoint Report, released in mid-August. More than 90% of retail markets surveyed are in recovery or expansion, while office markets remain evenly divided between recovery and recession. That single stat tells you more about CRE in 2026 than any headline about distress or rebounds.
The numbers underneath it matter. CBRE reported just over 6 million square feet of office net absorption in Q1 2026, and overall U.S. office vacancy fell to 18.6%. Progress, but still ugly in aggregate. The distinction that actually trades is quality. J.P. Morgan’s head of real estate banking put it plainly: high-quality office space has good demand from end users, while lower-quality space faces obsolescence.
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The geography of office recovery is where the trade lives. Cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Nashville, and Charlotte are often cited as relative bright spots, supported by population growth and job formation. But the specifics move around by definition and dataset, so treat premium-vs.-overall vacancy comparisons as directional, not a single fixed spread. Miami, Dallas, Phoenix, and Nashville have also been cited as markets where leasing is improving and demand for top-tier buildings is firmer, even as financing costs keep cap rates from compressing cleanly.
Not every Sunbelt market is the same position. A bifurcation between metros with resilient labor demand, including Charlotte, Nashville, and Raleigh-Durham, and those facing sector concentration risk, including Austin and Houston, is emerging as the key differentiating variable. Austin specifically remains behind: vacancy is elevated with rent pressure, and the timing of a full recovery still looks later rather than sooner.
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Retail is the cleaner story. Retail asking rents rose 2.4% year over year, but the level depends on the quarter: CBRE pegged Q1 2026 at $24.59 per square foot and Q2 2026 at $24.79. Supply scarcity is the engine. Demand is being driven by expanding grocery, discount, and services retailers that rely on physical locations to reach consumers. Geographically, Sun Belt and Southeast markets like Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, and Phoenix are seeing the strongest retail demand, buoyed by population and income growth.
Multifamily has a more nuanced path. The vacancy picture is improving, but it is not 4.8% nationally: CoStar put national apartment vacancy at 8.2% in Q2 2026. The supply contraction is still the tailwind: with deliveries expected to cool from the prior wave, lease-up competition should ease and landlords’ pricing power should gradually improve, including across previously challenged metros.
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The two REITs to track against this backdrop are Cousins Properties and Highwoods Properties, both concentrated in Sunbelt office. Both have pointed to steadier leasing conditions, but the claim that both raised their earnings outlooks on that basis is not consistently supported in the public record. The IRR mid-year data is the sharpest near-term read. When retail is at 90%-plus recovery and office is still split, the sector selection is doing more work than the market call.
