The Biggest Misread in CRE?
The ‘Obvious’ Death of Bank Branches.

Welcome back to On The Ground, your bi-monthly CRE newsletter powered by DealGround.

In the early 2010s, CRE was waking up again. The wounds of the Great Financial Crisis were still fresh, but tenants were expanding, capital was flowing, and CAP rates were beginning their historic compression. Optimism was back.

At the same time, another force was exploding: the internet. Digital habits were reshaping everything—from how people communicated to how they purchased groceries to how they managed money.

You didn’t need to be an economist to see where things were heading. Everyone “played the tape forward” and arrived at the same conclusion:

Bank branches were done. Finished. Obsolete.

You heard the lines everywhere:

• “Bank branches are going to be a thing of the past.”

• “I’d never buy a branch—the tenant won’t survive.”

• “Banks are the next Blockbuster.”

The conviction was strong. Universal, even. CRE investors wouldn’t touch a bank branch with a ten-foot pole.

But the people making those predictions weren’t running banks. And they certainly weren’t running JPMorgan Chase. Because while the market was busy writing eulogies, JPMorgan was opening new branches—fast.

This was just years after acquiring Washington Mutual’s entire banking operation from the FDIC: 2,200 branches across 15 states for only $1.9 billion. A deal so good it practically bends reality. A deal that helped fuel JPMorgan’s rise to the strongest, most dominant bank in the country.

Jamie Dimon was quietly laughing all the way to… well… the bank.

Yes, banks did close branches over the last 20 years. But they weren’t abandoning the model. They were right-sizing it. Cutting oversized, outdated, underperforming sites. What stayed? Modern, efficient, 3,500–4,000 square foot branches in strategic, high-value locations.

So why keep opening branches in a world where money is digital? Why double down after a financial crisis that rattled the entire planet? Only the banks know the full answer. But the strategy worked. And one truth stood out then—and still stands out today:

The people running these banks know a lot more about their businesses than you do.

Fast-forward to today. It’s nearly 2026. Technology is more advanced than ever. And you’d think branch expansion would’ve slowed down. Wrong.

Here are the publicly announced expansion plans from the biggest retail banks in America:

• JPMorgan Chase: 500 new branches through 2027

• Bank of America: 150–170 new branches through 2027

• Fifth Third Bank: Over 200 new branches through 2028

• PNC: Over 300 new branches through 2030

• Wells Fargo: 23 in Chicago, 20 in NYC through 2026

More than 1,200 new branches are coming online. Banks aren’t going anywhere.

For CRE investors, this is opportunity.

So where do you start? With the data that reveals where these tenants can land next. Look for large freestanding parcels. Expiring leases. Undervalued locations. Off-market opportunities hiding in old OMs.

There’s only one platform that surfaces all of this instantly. DealGround.

Don’t limit your world to just what’s on the market. The real gold is off-market. DealGround brings it to your fingertips. Log in and see what everyone else is missing. Because finding more deals leads directly to making more money, and that’s exactly why DealGround exists.

Read the full article here.

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Happy hunting. LFG!

The DealGround Team