The Zara founder's family office acquires a 94 percent-leased tower in one of the year's largest U.S. office transactions.

Real estate teams have moved from cost centers to strategic partners. Yet most are still spending time locating, entering, and reconciling contract data instead of optimizing portfolios. Contract details buried in PDFs across multiple systems. Reconciliation gaps between real estate and accounting. FTEs consumed by manual data work instead of portfolio strategy.

The revised outlook points to prolonged pressure on housing demand, with potential consequences for developers, lenders and retail properties.