Our take on the news that matters in commercial real estate and property data intelligence.
The Weekly LightBox Perspective
Last week’s holiday-quiet start to the year brought few new headlines, but it offered a useful pause. As we all make the mental shift from writing 2025 to 2026, the market is already giving us plenty to think about. Commercial real estate is leaving behind a year defined less by recovery than by stabilization and incremental momentum. Uncertainty remains, but the market enters the new year on firmer footing, setting the stage for the debates and decisions that will shape the months ahead.
TOP STORY: LightBox Recap of the Signals that Shaped 2025
From early-year disruptions and environmental shocks to late-year gains in transactions, appraisal activity, and investor confidence, 2025 proved to be a year of volatility and adjustment. Our Top Insights of 2025 recap brings together the ten stories that resonated most with CRE professionals as last year unfolded. They capture how easing rates began to translate into tangible market activity, how capital moved beyond core sectors, and how shifting land strategy, zoning constraints, and due diligence demands reshaped deal execution. Beyond market cycles, the year also marked meaningful progress in GIS, climate risk intelligence, and appraisal data governance, developments that are reshaping traditional functions and driving stronger CRE decision making.
LightBox Take: Entering 2026, the CRE market is showing greater stability, supported by available capital, improving liquidity, and clearer pricing and risk signals. Still, policy shifts, rate paths, climate exposure, and infrastructure demands will keep decision-making complex. Momentum is building, but disciplined analysis and vigilance will define success.
Data Centers Dominate CRE, but Stakes are High
Data centers have become the fastest-growing corner of CRE, fueled by surging demand for AI computing power and hyperscaler expansion. Construction spending is on track to surpass office development for the first time, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, with forecasts calling for up to $1 trillion in new North American data-center projects between 2025 and 2030. Investor appetite has followed, with REITs, private funds, and global asset managers rapidly increasing exposure to the sector, attracted by outsized returns and long-term leases.
Yet this shift is fundamentally changing CRE’s risk profile. Unlike traditional property types, data centers are increasingly tied to a narrow set of AI-driven tenants whose long-term profitability is still unproven. Lease structures may offer protection, but they also introduce new risks tied to power availability, construction delays, performance guarantees, and tenant termination rights. As capital floods in, concerns are rising that the sector could become overheated, particularly if AI demand or infrastructure delivery fails to meet expectations.
LightBox Take: Data centers remain the hottest CRE asset class, supported by strong demand, long leases, and compelling returns. As supply accelerates, underwriting assumptions deserve closer scrutiny, especially around tenant concentration, delivery risk, and infrastructure constraints. For investors and lenders, disciplined site selection, zoning clarity, and diligence around power, environmental, and operational exposure will be critical to separating durable assets from speculative bets as the sector matures.
New Survey Reveals Measured Confidence, Mixed Signals as CRE Begins 2026
CRE is entering 2026 with measured confidence, according to a new Deloitte survey of more than 850 senior CRE leaders across 13 countries. While 83% of respondents expect revenue growth this year, slightly below last year’s outlook, the figure signals continued stabilization well above the lows of 2023. Easing interest rates unlock capital, bringing lenders back into the market and supporting gradual improvement in leasing, pricing, and transaction activity. At the same time, rising construction and labor costs tied to trade policy and immigration constraints remain a headwind.
Sector performance is diverging. Office appears to be nearing a bottom, with flight-to-quality dynamics benefiting top-tier assets. Data centers remain the strongest performer, driven by AI and cloud demand, though power and zoning constraints loom. Retail continues to recalibrate toward smaller, experiential formats.
LightBox Take: This outlook aligns with recent forecasts from Colliers, Cushman & Wakefield, and others pointing to 2026 as a transition year, defined by firmer fundamentals, narrower valuation gaps, and cautious, selective growth opportunities.
Banks Rethinking Buy vs. Build AI Strategies
As banks accelerate AI adoption across commercial lending, appraisal data has emerged as one of the most difficult areas to modernize. While structuring appraisal content may appear to be a straightforward extraction problem, many lenders quickly discover its hidden complexity, according to a recent LightBox blog. Appraisals are long, narrative-driven, and highly inconsistent, with critical assumptions and valuation logic scattered across sections and formats. General-purpose AI tools can read the text, but often fail to understand the financial reasoning, contextual dependencies, and regulatory sensitivity embedded in these reports. Industry conversations reveal a common pattern: internal “build” efforts start with optimism but stall as institutions confront the scale of domain training, governance, and ongoing maintenance required to sustain accuracy.
LightBox Take: Successful data extraction is only the first step. Real value hinges on banks integrating structured data into underwriting, credit, portfolio, and risk workflows with full auditability. As a result, more banks are reassessing whether building in-house is sustainable, and whether purpose-built solutions better align with the operational and regulatory realities of appraisal review.
Bull vs. Bear Cases for CRE as 2026 Comes into Focus
As 2025 comes to a close, the debate over where commercial real estate is headed has sharpened. In a year marked by uneven recovery, elevated rates, and shifting sentiment, the question is no longer whether the market can function, but how it adapts next.
In the final CRE Weekly Digest of the year, Manus Clancy and Dianne Crocker walk through the bull and bear cases shaping expectations for 2026. The discussion reflects on why commercial real estate proved more resilient than many anticipated in 2025, what surprised market participants most, and where fault lines are likely to re-emerge. Topics include capital availability, interest rate expectations, labor market risk, and policy uncertainty, offering a grounded view of how the next phase may take shape.
LightBox Take: Market metrics across the LightBox ecosystem show that CRE dealmaking can function in a higher-for-longer rate environment. Any easing in borrowing costs would further support liquidity, lending engagement, and transaction activity. Still, familiar fault lines remain: a bumpy labor market, sticky inflation, and policy-driven uncertainty that can quickly reset expectations.
Did You Know?
Based on aggregate viewed agreement data from LightBox RCM for 2025 (through Q3), multifamily listings attracted the most interest, with an average of 212 per listing compared to 144 for retail, 139 for industrial, and 118 for office.
THE WEEK AHEAD
WEDNESDAY ADP employment, U.S. factory orders
THURSDAY U.S. productivity, initial jobless claims
FRIDAY U.S. employment report, unemployment rate, housing starts
