CNBC today announced that WeWork lost $1.25 Billion in the third quarter on revenue of $934 million. Its occupancy decreased to 79% as the company added 115,000 desks. If there is just the slightest downturn in the US economy, companies that have flexible rental agreements in WeWork facilities may exacerbate their predicament.

Having been through a number of economic booms and then downturns I like to be alert to early warning signs of an impending office slow-down in one of the hottest office markets in the US, San Francisco. We don’t have to worry about a suburban slow-down as Contra Costa and the Tri-Valley never took off…Read More→

A new startup called MainStreet entices employees frustrated by the high costs of the Bay Area by paying them $10,000 to relocate to a less expensive locale like Salt Lake City or Sacramento, they keep their tech jobs and work remotely from A co-working location where 20 people from 7 or 8 different companies may…Read More→

“WeWork may have been pulled back from the edge of insolvency by its biggest investor, but many of its landlords are still preparing for a worst-case scenario…Multiple potential WeWork lease deals in New York City are said to be canceled or halted, and scores of possible deals in London are now in jeopardy as WeWork…Read More→

“We’ve been debating for a couple of years about what impact new FASB rules would have on our business,” says Adam Kaduce, SIOR, a Senior Vice President at R+R Realty Group in West Des Moines (office leasing business). “Frankly, we’ve seen very little FASB related influence on how people are looking at real estate. It’s…Read More→

What, haven’t you heard about the Bay Area’s outrageous cost of housing and California’s crazy high tax structure? You could expand anywhere in the United States, go where the average price of a decent home is $250,000 or less, which might be just the down payment in the Bay Area! Then again, if you were…Read More→

WeWork has 528 locations in 111 cities in 29 countries as of June 2019. Before its valuation collapsed from 48 billion to 20 billion during the past month, it had identified 280 additional cities as targets. In 2018 it lost 1.6 billion and the first six months of 2019 it lost $690 million. “Landlords have…Read More→

I recently attended a presentation on Cybersecurity and Smart Buildings, and I was blown away by the many potential benefits (and one major concern) in this emerging industry. The experts giving the presentation included executive David Colby from Schneider Electric SE (a $29B Fortune 500 multi-national manufacturer of HVAC and IoT hardware); a cybersecurity expert,…Read More→

I just attended the annual SIOR Conference in Portland (Society of Office and Industrial Realtors) an international group of 3,300 commercial brokers who have to take a lot of classes and document they are in the top few percent of the nation’s commercial real estate experts. I’ve been a member for 34 years and it…Read More→

In National Real Estate Investor, July 12019, there was a report on the biggest flex office space markets in the country, with Regus and WeWork dominating.  Manhattan reported 13.5 million square feet with 30% annual growth, Los Angeles, 4.2 million with 15% annual growth, and in 6th place San Francisco with 2.8 million feet and…Read More→

Is the economic downturn on its way?  In the National Real Estate Investor, July, 2019 there were a number of different articles written by different authors but all pointing in the same direction for 2020 – down… Elaine Misonzhnik started it off on page 6, discussing industrial real estate “…while e-commerce growth will continue to…Read More→

In the San Francisco Bay Area, office tenant improvement costs have gone through the roof.  A few years ago, new carpeting and paint was $6-8/sf, now $12-15/sf.  Second generation space could be remodeled for $20-25/rsf just five years ago but now $50-60/rsf is required just to move a few walls, life-safety, Title 24 and minor…Read More→

Using sensors and the new software analytics are helping companies to cut their office space by 30% or more.  Microsoft used this and “this has meant significant financial savings and it could mean Microsoft can make further consolidations that save it tens of millions of dollars.”  Bisnow.com July 2019

According to a new 2019 National Office Absorption report just out by CoStar, net absorption is down 26% Midwest, 18% South, 9% in the West, but up 2% in the Northeast. No reasons for this given perhaps continued increases in productivity, corporate downsizing and offshoring/outsourcing?  Here in the Bay Area, especially San Francisco, companies are…Read More→

San Francisco may finally begin to run out of office space as there are more than 8.1 million square feet of office space being proposed, but with the office cap on new construction of 2.1 million square feet, there finally may be an exodus to the East Bay!  Along the I-680 and Tri-Valley we have…Read More→

If you are an office user evaluating different office buildings and want a quick way to see how the building is maintained, check out the restrooms and stairwells in smaller Class A and all sizes in Class B office buildings as this is where spider webs, dirty floors, and lack of dusting can show up. …Read More→

2019 Housing Market Forecast 18 Commercial Real Estate Trends To Dominate In 2019 Commercial Real Estate Outlook ULI Forecasts Strong Outlook for CRE Through 2020 N I-680 Corridor Office Q3 2018 N I-680 Corridor Industrial Q3 2018 Oakland Office Q3 2018 Oakland Industrial Q3 2018 East Bay Apartment Market Q3 2018 Northern California Retail Report…Read More→

First time since the Great Recession that I’ve heard multiple commercial real estate brokers broach the possibility of an upcoming real estate “crash”. In my opinion, crash is too harsh, but with rising interest rates, cap rates (price divided by net income) will also go up, resulting in property values going down. A number of…Read More→

Commercial real estate financing experts report today’s 10-year financing at 4.75%, with expectations this will rise to 5.75% by this time next year.

The Internet of Things will become increasingly important in the operations of commercial buildings, keeping operating costs down, increasing building efficiencies, and improving employee satisfaction with their work environment. As one small example, if air conditioning repairs can be made before the unit breaks due to sensors and new technology, this can save money. If…Read More→

In my opinion, over time there will be a greater rent spread between newer, smarter office buildings as compared with class B and C “dumber” buildings. There will be a number of reasons for this increasingly larger rent differential. Modern Class A office buildings with state of the art building systems can run much more…Read More→

A number of the major commercial brokerage companies reported a spike in the cost of office tenant improvements. In some regions the tenant improvement costs are rising much faster than the rental rates. Increases from 10 to 21% are hammering office landlords. “Key factors affecting the sudden rise in TI allowances include: 1) a significant…Read More→

At the recent Commercial Real Estate Allen Matkin’s / UCLA’s forecast, for California and overall, office space has reached the peak for this cycle with office rates as high as they will be for the foreseeable future. Warehouses are hot and for the East Bay, San Joaquin and Sacramento counties will remain sizzling for the…Read More→

“Of the Bay Area residents who are still here, nearly half of those surveyed recently said they plan to move out of the region in the next few years, according to a poll released in June by the Bay Area Council.” (Bay Area News Group, July 15, 2018) Folks are leaving in droves, selling their…Read More→

Not sure if this is a signal of a change in office market conditions or just a coincidence, but recently out here in the burbs of Contra Costa we have had a flurry of office building open houses and promotions. Breakfast open houses, luncheons, and we’ll see how long this trend continues. However, if prospects…Read More→

I-680 Commercial Real Estate:  Where Are We Now and Where Are We Headed? Marketing Reports: N I-680 | Office Q1 2018 N I-680 | Industrial Q1 2018 Oakland | Office Q1 2018 Oakland | Industrial Q1 2018 Tri-Valley | Office Q1 2018 Tri-Valley | Industrial Q1 2018

For the past few years the Federal Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has been working on developing accounting rules for lease transactions and equipment leases. These rules have still to be set, could occur later this year or in 2016, and may be retroactive. This will create a huge need for accounting and lease administration. All…Read More→

Ray Evans and Jeff Weil, July 29, 2015 When we first began research for this topic, the thought was how we can determine by priority the most economically viable levels of commercial property retrofit towards zero-energy efficiency. What work has the biggest payback and what tax deductions or tax credits are available to facilitate economic justification…Read More→

Big Picture Overview of California Subregion Review of Industrial, Office, Retail, Apartments, Housing, and Investments • Central Los Angeles Office Market Report Q2-15 • Central Los Angeles Industrial Market Report Q2-15 • Greater Los Angeles Basin Retail Market Report Q2-15 • San Diego County Office Market Report Q1-15 • San Diego County Research and Forecast Industrial Market Report Q2-15 • Fresno…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→

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→

Office tenant improvement contractors are experiencing significantly longer lead times for materials such as doors, glass and other building components that need to be manufactured. For example, instead of a five-day lead time, two weeks might be necessary. Along with this delay factor many cities are utilizing outside plan checkers that may make more comments…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→