The Office Bubble Is Bursting In America’s Largest Oil Town
America’s biggest oil town is once again filling with “see-through buildings” as energy companies continue their free-fall.
Houston energy companies have been stockpiling office space for years, optimistically believing their good fortune would never end and one day they’d need the space. But since oil's price free-fall, major energy companies are losing billions a quarter and are laying off tons of workers—ConocoPhillips announced last fall it will lay off 10% of its total workforce, Wolf Street reports.
Now these stockpiled office buildings are unnecessary—ConocoPhillips just put an entire 597k SF building on the sublease market. And they aren’t alone, sublease space shot up 19% in Q1 and it has exploded 124% since Q3 2014 as other major energy companies like Shell, Apache and others desperately try to unload real estate. [WolfStreet]
