Market Demand

The 30% That Never Was: How Flex’s Most Famous Number Drifted

In 2016 it described how much of a company’s own real estate could be flexible. A decade of retelling turned it into a forecast for all commercial real estate. By Yardi’s 2026 count, flex is about 2.3% of the U.S. office inventory it tracks.

Members & MarginsOctober 22, 2026 · 7 min read

30% is the figure quoted for flex by 2030; flex is 2.3% of the U.S. office inventory Yardi tracks, 2026.

In this article

The number in the pitch deck
From a portfolio to the whole market
Where flex actually sits
Why only two percent got built

10 min · from here to the end

The number in the pitch deck

Sit in enough landlord meetings and you will hear it: flexible space will be 30% of the office market by 2030. It appears in operator pitch decks, broker presentations and press releases. It is offered as the reason a floor should become flex now, before the market catches up.

With 2030 a little over three years away, the number is worth following back to where it came from. It turns out to be several different claims that happen to share one figure. Each retelling kept the 30% and changed what it was a percentage of.

From a portfolio to the whole market

2016
JLL, Workspace, Reworked 1
“Up to 30 percent of corporate real estate portfolios will comprise flexible space by 2030.”
The subject is the occupier: how a company might split its own real estate between long-term leases and flexible space.
2017
JLL, Bracing for the Flexible Space Revolution 2
Flex “could rise to 30 percent by 2030,” from less than 5% of office inventory.
The subject moves to the market, and the footnote counts “flexible workspace and shared amenity spaces,” with independent operators at about 2% of U.S. inventory.
Nov 2017
Conference recap 3
“30% of office space will be flexible by 2030.”
Within months, the portfolio framing is gone.
2018
JLL Research, Melbourne 4
Flexible space “would equal to 30% of total office stock in some markets.”
A qualifier, “in some markets,” that later retellings dropped.
2019
MBA Newslink 5
“30 percent of the U.S. office market will be flexible space by 2030.”
The denominator is now the whole national market.
2019
CBRE 6 7
Three scenarios for 2030: 6.5%, 13.3% and 22.2% of office supply.
The highest scenario sits well below 30%, from a starting point of just under 2%.
2026
JLL, Global Workspace Association keynote 8
The 30% “was a demand number, not a forecast of how much flex space would be built.”
As reported: occupiers were asked how they wanted their portfolios split, and they said 30% flex.
2026
International Workplace Group 9
“30% of all commercial real estate will be flexible workspace by 2030.”
The denominator grows past office to every commercial property type.

There is simply not enough available office space to support this supply without even more drastic changes in tenant behavior.
Julie Whelan, CBRE, on the 30% figure, September 2019 6

Where flex actually sits

Yardi’s 2026 count puts flexible space at about 2.3% of the U.S. office inventory it tracks, which excludes landlord-run spec suites.8 That is close to the roughly 2% JLL counted for independent operators in 2017, and the just under 2% CBRE measured in 2019.2 7 Some markets run higher: the same article cites London at about 10%. Even there, the number sits at a third of the famous figure.

None of this means flex is failing. It means the 30% did not start as a measure of market supply. A company telling a broker it would like 30% of its own space to be flexible is a real and useful signal about occupier demand. It is a different statement from 30% of all office buildings becoming flex.

Point of View

The question I hear most is whether there is demand for flex or coworking in a given building or market. My answer is that the demand is there and significantly unmet, which is why the private offices in a coworking space are the first thing to fill and the good ones carry a waiting list. The modern decision maker has changed the way they think about commitments. Whether it is a Fortune 500 company or a one-person business, the default has moved toward flexibility and away from long terms and upfront capital. People do not want to jump through hoops to get an office, and they do not want to build from scratch what someone else already does better. They will pay a premium to skip all of it.

What is scarce is not demand. It is supply, and supply is waiting on a valuation formula that still cannot see the business running on the floor.

So the question is not whether there is demand for the product. It is whether there is demand for offices that are flexible for the user. There is.

Why only two percent got built

Two percent is a share of something enormous, and the industry built all of it against the formula, not with its help. So why is it still only two percent?

U.S. coworking locations, by Yardi’s count

July 2024

about 7,060

July 2026

9,384

Up about a third in two years: suburban locations grew 39% and urban 22%.14 Roughly 166 million square feet across 9,400 locations and 4,300 operators, and the fastest-growing segment, operators with two to six locations, added 88% more locations in three years.8 The 2024 count is Yardi’s 2026 figure less the growth it reports.

Because the formula that values a building is antiquated, and it is the thing underwriters and landlords care about most. It was built around the lease, decades ago: how many years, how strong the tenant’s credit, how the rent steps up. Run it over a coworking floor and it loses twice. If an operator signs a lease, the appraiser sees a lease, but from a tenant the formula scores as weak credit, so the same rent adds less to the building’s value than it would from a tenant on ten years. If there is no lease, because the owner runs the floor or hires an operator under a management agreement, the income barely counts at all.12 Either way the dozens of paying members behind the floor never enter the math. Most landlords are managing toward a sale or a refinance a few years out, and what lifts the number at that moment is tenants the formula likes: long terms, strong credit. So landlords routinely reject coworking operators who are willing to sign a lease, not because the rent is lower, but because the formula scores the tenant down. On paper the floor is worth less than it earns, so the capital that would build the next one never shows up.

It does not matter much who runs the floor: an operator under a management agreement, an entrepreneur who signs the lease, or an owner who leases it to a company of its own, under its own brand or a franchise. In every case the rent roll shows one line where there are dozens of paying members.

What the rent roll sees

Suite 400 · Regional law firm10 yr

Suite 300 · Insurance agency7 yr

Suite 200 · Coworking1 tenant · weak credit

Suite 100 · Vacant

One line, scored on term and credit like every other line.

Suite 200, from the inside

Paying members, month to monthGraduated to a lease upstairs

Forty businesses on one line of the rent roll, and the tenants the other suites are made of.

Illustrative floor. The formula values the left side. The building is paid by the right.

And it misses what owners have started to notice.

A vibrant coworking space is the front door to the building. Companies arrive on a desk, grow, and graduate to a traditional lease on another floor in the building.

The floor’s own income may never count. The leases it feeds upstairs do.

Seat	In their own words
The appraiser	The office industry “has gotten used to five, seven and ten year leases,” so short agreements are “difficult to value and monetize.” Giovanni Palavicini, 2025.11
The lender	Management-agreement income is viewed as “less stable” than lease revenue. JLL, 2026.10
The owner	“We have assumed no income” from a floor it chose to keep running as coworking. City Office REIT, 2024.12
The occupier	The first reason for choosing flex: avoiding capital expense. CBRE, 2025.13

Increasingly, owners and operators have stopped waiting for the formula to catch up, and flex floors are opening in buildings across the country. The contrast is below. And an owner who runs the floor itself and earns that multiple can still see little of it in the appraisal, because it arrives as business income, not rent. The cash is real. The formula is not built to count it.

A thriving coworking business inside a building may be the secret ingredient in its next valuation. The underwriters don’t see it yet, and neither do most landlords. The ones who do are building for the future.

Four minutes on the question every floor is being asked.

Frequently asked questions

Where did the 30% flex by 2030 figure come from?

It traces to JLL research in 2016, which forecast that up to 30% of corporate real estate portfolios could be flexible by 2030. It was a statement about how companies would hold their own space, not about how much of the office market would become flex.

How much of the U.S. office market is flexible space today?

Yardi's 2026 count puts flex at about 2.3% of the U.S. office inventory it tracks, which excludes landlord-run spec suites. That is close to the roughly 2% JLL itself counted for independent operators in 2017. Definitions vary, so any share depends on what is counted as flex.

Did any major broker forecast less than 30%?

Yes. In 2019 CBRE published three scenarios for 2030 at 6.5%, 13.3% and 22.2% of office space, all below 30%.

What should you use instead of a national share?

The demand within the building's own trade area, the realistic pricing of competing operators, and the share of the building flex can occupy before value is affected. JLL's April 2026 sale data shows buildings above about 17% flex historically saw value impairment, while CBRE's 2020 analysis put the line at 30%.

If the demand is real, why has so little flex been built?

Because building valuation still prices a lease, not a business. Appraisal and lending were built around a term of years and a tenant's credit, so a floor of small companies on short agreements reads as risk and its income gets little credit in the building's value, sometimes none. A coworking floor appears on the rent roll as one tenant where there are dozens of paying members.

Does it matter whether the owner runs the floor, hires an operator, or leases to a coworking business?

Not to the formula. Under a management agreement there is no lease to count. An entrepreneur on a lease counts as one tenant. An owner's own operating company counts as one lease to itself, whether under its own brand or a franchise. In every case the income arrives as memberships, and the old valuation method has nowhere to put that.

How quickly does a flex floor stabilize, and what does it earn?

Across the industry, a stabilized flex floor brings in roughly two and a half to five and a half times the rent on the same space, depending on market rents: the lower the market rent, the higher the multiple. Smaller floors reach 90% occupancy in about a year; larger ones take two to four. And an owner who runs the floor itself and earns that multiple can still see little of it in the appraisal, because it arrives as business income, not rent. The cash is real. The formula is not built to count it. Traditional office, by comparison, sits more than twenty percent vacant nationally.

Is a coworking operator a good tenant for a building?

On paper it is treated like any other tenant. In practice a vibrant coworking space works as the building's front door: companies arrive on a desk, grow, and graduate to a traditional lease on another floor in the building. Owners who turn away an operator willing to sign a standard lease are usually reading the form, not the floor.