➤ Signal

Debt capital is reopening for leased, well-located office — selectively — and the buy thesis is basis, not a recovery bet on the asset class.

The headline isn’t that office traded — it’s that office traded with leverage. A lender wrote $80.3M against a Sun Belt office campus, which a year ago was nearly unfinanceable outside trophy gateway product. Tourmaline is buying occupancy (91% leased) at a reset basis in one of the country’s strongest office-demand metros. This is the narrow lane where office is investable: high occupancy, strong submarket, price corrected, debt available.

Office is bifurcating into financeable and unfinanceable. Leased, infill, Sun Belt product can now clear with debt; half-empty commodity towers still can’t. The lending reopening is real but conditional — and the conditions are occupancy and location.