One of my colleagues gave me an article,’ Meet the People Who Refused to Go Back to the Office and Lost Their Jobs’. It references Amazon, UPS, Morgan Chase and Boeing mandating that their employees return to the office five days a week. The article quotes workers who were mandated to return, who didn’t and…Read More→

Office workers mandated to return to the office, at least a few times a month, are finding a productive way to work the system to get noticed, socialize, meet with their colleagues, and not face horrendous commutes. They work from home in the morning, then zip in when the commute traffic has died down, spend…Read More→

The SF Business Times  Oct. 2, 203 reported on a recent survey of 2,000 full0time employees by Owl Labs, The Hybrid Work Survey, which found “…69% of employees believe their company is requiring in-office work due simply to traditional work expectations. That disconnect is one of many factors that have limited enthusiasm for returning to…Read More→

Cities and states around the country are offering incentives to remote workers to move, with West Virginia offering $12,000 in relocation cash paid over two years, a $2,500 outdoor recreation package and free coworking space.  According to a recent San Francisco Business Times article, 272 people have taken advantage of these incentives. “West Virginia notes…Read More→

Gleb Tipursky in Entrepreneur referenced three recent reports, The Greenhouse Candidate Experience Report, The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics, and Inspace’s Returning For Good report. “Unispace finds that nearly half (42%) of companies that mandated office returns witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of…Read More→

  On top of already putting hundreds of thousands of square feet of San Francisco office space on the market, Salesforce just announced it will lay off 10% of it’s employees. The company is taking a $450-650 million dollar write-off due to office space reductions. It currently owns or leases 1.9 million square feet of…Read More→

According to the Census Bureau data, for the year ending July 1, 2022, 343,000 California residents left the state. However, 106,000 births and 125,700 net international immigration  resulting in a net loss of 113,000. Meanwhile, Texas grew by 470,00, Florida by 416,000 and North Carolina by 133,000.  Of course, with our limited water supply and…Read More→

Bisnow December 6, 2022: “In an effort to entice employees back into the office, companies have ramped up digestible perks like beverages and food, but a recent survey conducted by proptech firm Essensys indicated that employees don’t care about snacks or other frivolous amenities — they want better technology and flexible workstations. Of the 1,000 U.S. workers the…Read More→

  As reported in the San Francisco Business Times October 18, 2022, “Layoffs and economic uncertainty notwithstanding, the Bay Area is expected to enjoy economic growth of 4.8% this year, fueled by what remains strong performance from the tech sector, according to new research from the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. The report, 2022’s Fastest-Growing…Read More→

In the October 21, 2022 San Francisco Business Times article, 20 cities were mentioned that will pay folks to pack up and move to their city. Here are a few examples, and the incentives range from giving you a discount on buying a home there, unlimited golf membership, free use of co-working spaces, free fitness…Read More→

Reported in the San Francisco Business Times 9/29/22,  the CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Jamie Dimon suggested that those who come to the office every day will be getting the better assignments versus those who work remotely or only come in occasionally. But, “The Survey job site Monster found most workers would quit their…Read More→

  “Is San Francisco’s CRE Market On the Verge Of Collapse?   MyEListing.com, a Texas-based commercial real estate marketplace, has published a report based on San Francisco data, and it paints a picture of a seriously struggling office market. The pandemic-driven “work-from-home” model appears to be taking permanent hold in The City by the Bay. With…Read More→

In an article by Sougata Mukherjeee, Editor-in-Chief of the Triangle Business Journal in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, he wirtes that GICPte  and Workspace Property Trust just spent $1.1 billion on purchasing 53 suburban office buildings  “That’s a bet that reflects institutional investors believe remote work is here to stay, and now office buildings near residential neighborhoods…Read More→

BizNews 9/6/22 had a great quote that to me sums up the dilemma many corporate executives are now facing. “What is the purpose of an office?” said Matthew Saxon, Zoom’s chief people officer. “It’ll be different for different companies, but one of the things I think this huge experience we’ve all been a part of…Read More→

Recent surveys have supported allowing pets in the office will increase workers returning to the office. about 71% of employees said their employer made changes to its workplace pet policies within the last year. Those sorts of changes can help employee retention and satisfaction, with about 86% of employees surveyed saying they would look forward…Read More→

Colliers just released a bullet list for August of a few  of the very positive news clips out. Blackstone, one of the biggest commercial real estate investment companies in the world, just raised 24.1 billion for its latest real estate fund, ‘the largest fundraise on record’. “July’s job report marks the return of full-pre-pandemic employment…Read More→

  A recent Colliers Workplace Advisory survey of over 200 major corporate office occupiers found that 69% have set a number of days to be in the office, with the majority requiring three or more days in the office. Trip.com, with 35,000 employees, did a study on hybrid vs full-time office work and found that…Read More→

A recent Bisnow headline said it perfectly. “Traffic or Table Tennis?”   The article cited amenities like golf simulators, food trucks and coffee carts as ways to incentivize workers returning to the office. The statistics have improved, with a national average of 44.7% for office occupancy, but the time and hassle in getting to and from…Read More→

  Prologis May Soon Have Over One Billion SF Of Industrial Properties, but there is another story in the pending acquisition of Duke Realty. The San Francisco Business Times put a great spin on another angle to industrial real estate. Prologis has a division called Essentials which sells all kinds of products and services important…Read More→

  Elon Musk asked all his Tesla employees “to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week’ and those that didn’t do so would be fired.  Then yesterday Apple leased 382,484 square feet of office space at Mathilda Commons, 625/655 North Mathilda Avenue in Sunnyvale. Pure Storage today sublet 330,000 sf of plug…Read More→

Every business day I get several editions of the business news from the San Francisco Business Times. Here are the headlines from this morning’s edition, June 2, 2022: Why shares in this tech titan’s AI company have dropped 17% in 17 months; East Bay migraine patch developer files for bankruptcy; Gene therapy company abandons East…Read More→

“To attract workers back to the office, companies are leaning on the presence of tricked-out offices with leisure areas, modern technology, fitness areas, outdoor spaces and other amenities. Nationally, large companies are hosting parties, pop-up events, free food and even celebrities to paint the workplace as more appealing than home, according to the New York…Read More→

Who Is Kidding Whom?   Jim Gardner, Managing Editor of the San Francisco Business Times summed up the controversy over whether employees will be working in the office or working remotely. In his editorial titled “Back to the Office: Who’s Kidding Who?” Jim cited several surveys, and the bottom line appears to be, employers overwhelmingly…Read More→

  This has huge implications not just as a major office deal, but one that was signed while we are still struggling to get workers back into the office. Additionally this is a major signal to the world that despite high income taxes, high energy costs, high housing costs, a homeless problem the San Francisco…Read More→

If the San Francisco Bay Area were it’s own country, it would be ranked #19 in the world in terms of largest economy.  Recent major corporate expansions in this region have bolstered this well-deserved reputation. LinkedIn just expanded its Sunnyvale headquarters by committing to a number of new office buildings to be developed. Meta, formerly…Read More→

  39% of Small Business Owners Said They Would Fire Employees Who Refuse to Come Back to the Office, and in the same survey 39% said they would not. In an article in the San Francisco Business Times July 8, 2021, Digital.com surveyed 1,500 small business owners. ‘But about 47% of business owners who say…Read More→

  Ron Miller wrote a recent article comparing the major tech giants and how they planned to have their employees work moving forward. For the most part, Google, Apple, Salesforce, Microsoft and Amazon appear to be offering their employees a variety of hybrid work models, depending on the specific tasks the employee is handling. Most…Read More→

Updater is a relocation app that helps Americans with various tasks that come up with a relocation, such as hooking up to Internet, getting your mail forwarded, updating your various records, etc. They track who is going where in the U.S.  From migration analysis of 300,000 moves, less folks are leaving San Francisco than in…Read More→

At a recent commercial brokers meeting filled with industry experts…apartment house cap rates in the Bay Area are averaging 4.3%, even though apartment vacancy rates have almost doubled since the pre-pandemic, going from 4% two years ago to 7.6% currently. The eviction moratorium is about to expire in many regions and this might cause a…Read More→

Bisnow reported today on a Stanford and Hoover Institution working paper titled ‘Why Working From Home Will Stick’ ‘that the amount of work undertaken from home in the U.S. will rise from about 5% before the pandemic to about 20% after the pandemic. They surveyed 30,000 U.S. workers multiple times and asked them to report…Read More→

A report just out from Colliers has the I.S. office vacancy rate at 14.2%, with 45 million square feet of negative absorption during the first quarter of 2021, and a record 200,000,000 square feet of available sublease space. Ouch! “Recovery in the office market is set to lag, record levels of sublease space and negative…Read More→

On the one hand we are hearing about major tech companies announcing a phased return-to-the-office,  with announcements by most of the big boys like Facebook, Salesforce and Google. On the other hand, Airbnb just announced today it was expanding its sublease inventory to 438,000 square feet,  which adds 287,000 square feet to its previous space…Read More→

The San Francisco Business Times May 13, 2021 reported on a survey taking by Blind, an anonymous professional network, who asked over 3,000 employees if they would rather work from home permanently or get a $30,000 raise and 64% said they would rather work from home.  Employees of two companies  would take the cash over…Read More→

The Bay Area Council surveyed 1,000 voters and 47% said they might leave the bay Area over the next few years. Of that group, 88% said they would leave California, The respondents citing high taxes, the high cost of living and housing costs doubled over the past few years. Texas, Arizona and New Mexico were…Read More→

According to the San Francisco Business Times April 30, 2021, Austin, Texas averaged a 30.8% office occupancy rate while San Francisco had a 12.2% office occupancy rate during the pandemic. There may be several reasons for this, including Texas’s much looser restrictions during the pandemic and in Austin many employees drive to work. In San…Read More→

Bisnow April 20, 2021  Survey by Savills reports “Seventy-three percent of the respondent companies said that their employees will be in centralized offices at least three days a week, while very few (4%) expect all their workers to be required to show up in person five days a week. A vast majority of companies (79%) are…Read More→

There are currently 9.5 million square feet of office sublease space available in San Francisco today, with an overall vacancy rate above 19%. Landlord reps are still optimistic that the market will come back as more people get vaccinated, while the tenant-biased reps remind us that this it the time to snatch up bargain sublease…Read More→

In today’s East Bay Times a recent poll of Bay Area residents concluded that 20% of those surveyed felt working in the office was ‘very unsafe’ and 33% felt it was ‘somewhat unsafe’ in a poll of 1,000 registered voters for the Bay Area Council.  This means more than half polled  did not feel safe…Read More→

Remember after a major earthquake we stock up on bottled water, battery-operated radios, freeze-dried food, and other necessities if we were shut off from civilization until the highways and bridges were fixed? Now we have major Covid-19 sanitization, consultants advising office building owners to invest in self-opening doors, touchless elevator controls, and temperature checking stations…Read More→

In the SF Business Times April 1, 2021, John McNellis, who is one of the top Retail industry gurus, reflected on what retail types thrived during the past years pandemic, and which didn’t. Home Depot and others in that category had a great year as those stuck at home worked on remodeling projects. Netflix did…Read More→

Wells Fargo just told its employees that employees would be coming back to the office after Labor Day. “We believe most of us benefit by being physically together”, Wells told employees. They currently have 200,000 employees working from home. Google said some of its U.S. employees could return t the offices this month in a…Read More→

According to George Avalos, business reporter for the East Bay Times, “California’s job market should outpace the nation’s employment performance during 2021 – but remain two years away from climbing  back to the record job totals the state reached in early 2020” according to the UCLA Anderson Forecast just out. Also, the report cast doubt…Read More→

On the one hand you have Salesforce just announcing it was putting 225,000 sf of San Francisco office space on the sublease market (on top of the 8+ million square feet already on that market) as well as cancelling a 325,000 sf office lease near its Salesforce Tower that had yet to be built. Bad…Read More→

There have been a number of major tech and finance companies over the past nine months who have announced long-term stay-at-home policies, prompting thousands of employees to uproot their families, relocate to a much less expensive region, purchase a new home, and begin to enjoy life with less financial stress. Many companies have had detailed…Read More→

Retail deals are happening in a number of regions. Restaurants might be getting extensive up-front free rent from the landlords to get them through the pandemic months, and in turn landlords may be going to their lenders to try to get loan restructures commensurate with these concessions. I’ve seen national retail reports stating both that…Read More→