Understanding how well or badly the office market has been doing has become a challenge, at least when closely watching the daily news cycle.

But data has been accumulating and building a better picture of what has been happening. Trepp released its September 2023 bank research note. and from the perspective to banks lending to the office sector, things aren't looking good.

"Net charge-offs and delinquency rates for bank-held commercial real estate (CRE) loans increased in the second quarter, with all major commercial property types showing greater distress," Trepp wrote. "Lender concern about risk, indicated by criticized loan rates, increased across multiple regions for most property sectors. The pace of origination volume has slowed dramatically, with Q2 2023 commercial mortgage origination volume at only about 60% of the pre-Covid average quarterly origination volume in 2019."