Office leasing at the national level has been advancing steadily and recovering the ground lost after the pandemic. In the first semester of 2022 it increased by 70%, this when compared to the same period in 2021, at the national level.

If we compare the performance of the demand during the months of July and August 2022, we can observe a more accelerated increase, of 2.4 times the gross demand registered in the same two-month period of 2021. Mexico City, which concentrates 67% of the national demand during the first eight months of 2022 has managed to exceed the demand registered between January and August 2021 by just over double.

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Similarly, other corporate markets such as Guadalajara, Querétaro, Mérida and Monterrey registered more attenuated increases in gross demand of 80%, 36%, 29% and 22%, respectively, during the first eight months of 2022.

The return to work centers has been more constant in recent months and the fact of not continuing to inject new construction into office inventories has allowed vacancy gaps to be closed, as has happened in the Monterrey and Guadalajara markets.

The labor dynamics that we have seen develop in Mexico City and the rest of the national corporate markets is not far from what happens in the rest of the markets across borders, where the pressure for productivity on the part of the companies and the balance for having spaces outside the scope of the home office, it has complemented the return of staff to their offices, at least in a greater proportion than that which had been registered at the beginning of the year.

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Another factor, although not as decisive, is represented by the changes in uses that have allowed Class B and C buildings to be reconfigured towards new real estate products. If we analyze the configuration of gross demand in Mexico City during 2Q 2022, the proportion of Class A and Class B spaces becomes similar, where the area between one thousand and two thousand square meters concentrates a third of the capital's demand.

In the case of Monterrey, the gross demand for the second quarter of the year was concentrated at 66% in surfaces greater than 500 square meters, although in this market the balance is tilted towards Class A offices that manage to concentrate 87% of the demand in the trimester.

Finally, Guadalajara, which registered 42 thousand square meters of gross demand between January and August 2022, demanded sizes between 50 and 1,200 square meters, concentrating more than 90% in Class A.