The first quarter’s total hotel transaction volume of $5.6 billion was up 14.4 percent from Q1 2025, but down 47 percent since the cyclical peak in 2022. Single-asset transaction volume reached $5.4 billion, up 33 percent year over year, and five of those single assets sold for more than $100 million, up 24 percent in volume year over year.
Gen Z Malls
Generation Z is showing a welcome affinity for malls after millennials’ lukewarm allegiance, and mall owners are spending more time and money courting this generation. However, mall owners are reacting to a wave of recent disruptions to their properties by taking an extreme measure: They are banning all shoppers under 18 who aren’t accompanied by an adult.
Office Removals
A recent report found that 2025 was the first year that office space removals, whether through demolition or conversions, outpaced newly completed space for the first time since tracking the data began in 1988.
Q1 RevPAR
Revenue per available room improved through March, but noted ongoing “bifurcation” with RevPAR at luxury hotels up 7.3 percent while economy hotels were down 2.1 percent. Nationally, RevPAR is holding at $96, up 3.8 percent year to date through March.
Office to Apartments
Office-to-apartment conversions have reached a record level, with 90,300 units in different stages of development as of the start of the year. The biggest cities lead that effort, including New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles, and have helped boost office-to-residential conversions by 28% at the beginning of 2026 compared to a year earlier.
Job Market
The number of jobs held by women has increased by 421,000 since the end of 2024. The number of jobs held by men has slipped by 1,000. It is a figure that comes with caveats: More women hold multiple jobs, for example, while more men are self-employed—meaning they have work but they aren’t included in the payrolls jobs count.
Private Credit Fundraising
Blackstone and Apollo continued to attract investor money, reporting 18% and 30% year-over-year increases, respectively, in the first quarter for their credit divisions’ assets under management. Blue Owl also reported higher overall assets under management from a year ago.
Layoffs
Private-sector layoffs were 10% lower than this time last year.
Work From Home
Nearly 63% of workers are now fully on-site, up from just over half in late 2021. Many other workers have to commute for at least some of the workweeks.
Prediction Markets
Total trading volume on Polymarket and Kalshihas rocketed to $24.2 billion in April, up from $1.8 billion a year earlier.