If there was one glimmer of light in the beleaguered office market, it was the momentum seen in the suburbs since the pandemic. Last year Colliers reported that vacancies in CBD offices were far higher than suburban offices, a marked pivot from earlier years. It did acknowledge that the rise in CBD vacancies was "probably a temporary trend, not a structural market shift," and that "the amenities of CBDs and urban cores should eventually lure back occupiers.

"Until this demand rebounds, it won't be clear whether suburban outperformance is temporary," it said.

It is now clear that the outperformance was indeed temporary, according to new statistics from CoStar Group. It reports that recently net absorption has turned sharply negative in the suburbs, with nearly 50% of all suburban occupancy lost since 2020 occurring in the past 12 months. Prior to this, office occupiers vacated more than 200 million square feet with 54% occurring in CBDs and 20% occurring in suburban offices since April 2020.