Not sure what you read there but the roughly $500B figure is a real loss in the commercial real-estate sector as leases some off the books. It’s a slow burn.

There’s an additional expense to try to repurpose these building as residential but it’s a massive one that won’t come easily. You can’t just turn modern office buildings into residential building by reworking the interior. Most wouldn’t meet residential codes (like bedrooms needing windows, emergency egress, additional plumbing and waste requirements, parking etc)

Commercial real estate is going to take a massive hit the next 3-4 years and that $435B number is a real estimate in the decline in commercial real-estate value. It comes from this study.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30526/w305...