“Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during a publicly broadcast Q & A with employees that his company is looking elsewhere for growth because of the Bay Area’s housing and traffic issues. The infrastructure here is really tapped. Housing prices are way up. Traffic is bad.” “Facebook’s largest locations outside of the Bay Area are Seattle,…Read More→

I was just mailed a marketing piece from the California Madera County, Economic Development Commission, and a few interesting facts: In 1990 California’s population was only 29,950,000 and now it is 39,927,000, a 10 million growth in less than 30 years! No wonder our housing hasn’t caught up. The average home price in 2018 in…Read More→

Again and again, companies that can choose to locate to regions where there is plenty of low-cost office and research space, and where the cost of a new house is ridiculously cheap (i.e. under $250,000 for a decent home in a decent neighborhood) companies still choose to locate in the Bay.  Autonomous vehicle firm Aurora…Read More→

Yes, the Bay Area has a severe housing shortage.  Here is an example of why: “Almost 400 projects in the city (San Francisco) comprising 36,909 units have been approved for over two years but haven’t started construction, according to the planning department.  Of those, 6,095 are affordable.  Developers point fingers directly at local impact fees…Read More→

Governor Gavin Newsom “recently criticized Tennessee, which is an increasingly popular destination for Bay Area businesses and residents.  “I see that we’re CEO magazines ‘worst place in America to do business’ and yet our GDP growth outperforms every one of those other states they highlight,” Newsome said, citing California’s strong economic growth averaging 3.8% in…Read More→

The first inside page of the May/June 2019 Business Facilities magazine was an ad for Michigan Economic, “The startup culture in Michigan is like no other.”  For sure, if you want very affordable housing, which according to Zillow, the median rent price is $850 and median home sales is $350,000.  Here in the overpriced and…Read More→

A recent article in the May 31, 2019 San Francisco Business Times reports that three years ago 34% of those surveyed said they may leave the Bay Area in a few years, the following year that figure increased to 46% and now 49% feel that way.  However, 74% said the Bay Area is a good…Read More→

In an article titled “Wealthy Millennials are leaving these states – and moving to these instead,” I had fully expected to see California at the top of the list of states folks were fleeing from, but was surprised!  Based on data provided by the IRS from the 2015 to 2016 tax year, a June 2019…Read More→

I am so glad we’re building new freeways and additional Transbay bridges and BART tunnels … NOT! Yet there is a huge push to build hundreds of thousands of new homes in the Bay Area to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of new tech jobs. In just one submarket, San Francisco’s Central South of Market…Read More→

One more blog about governments offering huge economic incentives, tax breaks and subsidies to entice corporations to set up shop in their region. Yes, there can be “clawback” provisions whereby if the promised economic benefits of new jobs and increased economic prosperity do not occur, the company has to give back part or all of…Read More→

In Site Selection on January 2018 California was either at the top or near the bottom ranking for various economic and business benchmarks. Out of 50 U.S. States, California was #1 in Higher Ed. R&D Expenditure, #2 in Information Technology and Innovation, but #48 in Business Tax Climate and #47 in lowest cost of electricity….Read More→

Canopy is opening a new shared workspace on Jackson Square, San Francisco. The 11,000 square-foot facility will be a “serene, distraction-free environment for up to 250 members to concentrate, connect and do their best work.” That ratio works out to 44 square feet per employee. If we imagine that everyone were to show up one…Read More→

Recently Facebook signed a lease in San Francisco for 750,000 square feet. This week it was reported that Facebook also signed a lease in Sunnyvale at Moffett Towers II for one million square feet! Industry experts are concerned that we might run out of office space. However, out here in the Eastbay the I-680 Corridor…Read More→

I’ve been giving speeches at various organizations, forecasting the market, where we are headed, if we are in a bubble (or two), and in my presentation I mention Facebook’s lease last month of the last available office building in San Francisco, taking all 750,000 sf, then, a few weeks later, leasing one million square feet…Read More→

According to recent news reports, California currently has an estimated 2 million housing unit shortfall, which at the industry ratio of 2.6 persons per unit represents 5,200,000 more people, but with all the focus on job / housing imbalances, what about the freeway / public transit imbalance that will dramatically worsen if we add this…Read More→