Insurer Hippo liked the building they were leasing so much, they decided to purchase it. The Austin Business Journal reported that a subsidiary of the publicly-traded company paid $26 million for the 48,000 square foot building at 701 E. Fifth Street; this was after having leased roughly 34,600 square feet of office space in the four-story structure from Elevate Sabine Investors LP (affiliated with developer Elevate Growth Partners).
The sale stands out as many companies are currently looking to reduce their office space or rethink how they use it in an era of hybrid work; Meta, Atmosphere Home Depot 3M TikTok and WorkRise have all placed Austin real estate up for sublease recently.
Office vacancy remains high in Central Business District with 12.1 million square feet of class A office space having a vacancy rate just over 18%.
