The mood was grim in recent days at one of the nation’s largest real estate industry conferences, with many attendees expecting property markets to remain stagnant into at least 2025.

“It’s been a very challenging year, with many industry changes,” Kim Snyder, an executive for industrial giant Prologis. Snyder passed the national chair gavel of NAIOP to Brian Walker, president of Burns Scalo Real Estate, during the group’s annual conference held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Seattle.

“There’s the threat of recession and a demand pullback in many of our sectors. Now, with the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel, it leaves us quite sober and frankly very pensive about what things are going to look like down the road,” Snyder said.

More than 1,400 people attended the CRE.Converge conference staged by the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, better known as NAIOP. The chatter among attendees centered around reduced expectations for a quick recovery, a lack of lease renewals, and delayed construction starts.

Mike Sugrue, an executive with architecture firm SMBH in Columbus, Ohio, said his firm keeps winning design contracts. But the developers awarding the contracts are pushing back start dates.

Sugrue said real estate markets might start to stabilize next year but said it’s likely to be a very slow healing process.

“Construction costs are starting to come down some, which could help offset the high cost of lending and money, said Sugre, whose firm designs commercial and residential developments. “We’re doing our best to hang on.”