All around the San Francisco Bay Area office vacancy rates are extremely low, except along the I-680 Corridor and the Tri-Valley, where vacancy rates are still double digits.  Tons of sublease space – do you want 200,000 square foot, Class A long-term leasehold remaining, for $30/rsf per annum with $150/rsf tenant improvements in place?  Call…Read More→

An avalanche of Bay Area IPO’s creating thousands of new millionaires, some now flush with cash seeking to buy homes, while Californians by the tens of thousands are selling their pricey ranchers and condos and fleeing to lower cost areas like Texas, Utah, Tennessee, and other more affordable places.  Even if a million folks left…Read More→

The San Francisco and San Jose office markets last year accounted for more than 22 million square feet of office leasing, which when compared to the East Bay are many times what we have experienced in Oakland, Walnut Creek, and the Tri-Valley regions.  San Francisco rents now average $92/rsf, while up and down the I-680…Read More→

In the last issue, December 2018, I stated that the commercial real estate market in most areas and product types has peaked. I’ve asked a number of commercial real estate brokers from all types of companies (being a SIOR member has value) and everyone has agreed. Yes, San Francisco, the Peninsula and Santa Clara will…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. This won’t happen…Read More→

Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” might be a good metaphor for the San Francisco Bay Area. In a crescent-shape going from San Francisco down the Peninsula into San Jose, there are millions and millions of square feet of new office buildings under construction, with San Francisco rents approaching $100/rsf per annum and tenant…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→

Unemployment levels are at the lowest they have been since 2000. Office space more than ever is being used by corporations to attract and retain employees. What type of layout, materials, amenities will cause a prospective employee to want to work there, and what bells and whistles within and outside of the office environment will…Read More→

The Bay Area office market continues to spin furiously, with leasing activity and rental rates for the most part holding steady. New office development on the Peninsula and in Oakland will eventually alleviate the pressure of the lack of office inventory, but for now, its office demand is still robust. Along the I-680 Corridor we…Read More→

A few weeks ago I presented a forecast of where our commercial real estate market is headed in 2018 and beyond at an event hosted by RINA Accountancy and Chicago Deferred Exchange Company. In summary, San Francisco has been off the charts, with 9.5 million square feet of gross office absorption, 2.2 million feet coming…Read More→

The San Francisco office market continues to sizzle, with recent announcements of Dropbox signing a reportedly 15-year lease for 736,000 square feet of office space and Facebook leasing 432,000 square feet. Meanwhile, we have more than 1 million of vacant Walnut Creek office space, 700,000 square feet vacant in Concord and another 1 million feet…Read More→

Some folks are surprised when they ask how the East Bay office market is and out along the I-680 Corridor, and when I reply to them that since 2007 and The Great Recession, overall office leasing has been lethargic. Class A office building sales have been brisk, with dozens of buildings trading hands just during…Read More→

The one word to describe the San Francisco Bay Area commercial real estate market, encompassing office, multifamily and investments is “unbelievable”! Major office and apartment buildings are trading at record prices, office leasing is still robust although we have a lot of supply coming on-stream in San Francisco, and the big tech companies continue to…Read More→

This issue marks the beginning of the 37th year of publication of OfficeTimes, 222 issues, I have never missed a deadline, and thank you for taking the time to read this! In the olden days before the Internet my staff would print out hundreds of hard copies to snail mail, and I would write hard-written…Read More→

Like many of you, I do not know a single person looking for a job. My friends, who get downsized or merged out of positions, seem to bounce right back into another great employment opportunity. Here in the Bay Area, one big complaint is how long the commute can be. For many of my friends…Read More→

A few weeks ago, I gave a Forecast 2017 presentation at Scott’s Walnut Creek restaurant. Bottom line is we are in a great shape for the most part, with the San Francisco office market still robust. Annual full-service rents range is from $75 to $110/square foot, and tech sublease space gets snatched up by other…Read More→

The Millennials are coming on strong, and they want flexibility, freedom and fun; mobile devices rule, texting may be preferred to a phone call, collaboration, work hard, play hard, and who cares about having a workstation let alone a private office. Yet, office space is here to stay, in one form or another, as the…Read More→

San Francisco currently has an office vacancy of 6.5%, 2 million feet for sublease, and 5 million square feet of tenants looking for space. The office vacancy in San Mateo County is 6.8%. In the East Bay, the vacancy rate ranges from 7.5% in Oakland to 11% along the I-680 Corridor and the Tri-Valley region….Read More→

Same old, same old, the San Francisco office market is still on fire, but maybe slightly diminished in intensity, subleases are up, unicorns far and few between, huge takedowns of space are not as common an occurrence, but still leasing velocity to sustain annual rents is in the $70 to 90 per square foot range….Read More→

This Corporate Office Perspectives issue marks the 36th year of my writing and publishing this, every other month without fail. There have been times where life events tried to get in the way, like the birth of my son, raising two kids, getting married and divorced, but I enjoy sharing these thoughts with you so…Read More→

With the stock market down a few thousand points, big banks taking billions in write-offs on oil-related loans, China’s economy slowing down and uncertainty in the U.S. political arena, we could be doing a lot worse. Unemployment is basically as good as it can get and San Francisco Bay Area rents are still holding strong…Read More→

As I write this newsletter in mid-January, the stock market has just fallen more than 1,000 points just during the first week of the new year, the price of oil at unbelievable low prices, interest rates are up, unemployment is down, China’s economy is scaring many, Americans fear another Paris or San Bernardino-type attack, California…Read More→

The right wing may in part be complaining about the economy, too many taxes, too many benefits, while the left wing bemoan insufficient social projects … meanwhile, the labor department just announced overall unemployment is down to 5%, which is full employment if you can ever believe the Fed’s statistics. Donald, Ben, Jeb, Bernie, Hillary, sometimes very…Read More→

This month, on October 11th, marks the beginning of my 40th year of leasing and selling San Francisco East Bay office space and buildings. I’ve seen so very many brokers come and go, leave brokerage for the lure of huge profits in development or, conversely, job security and salary in banking or other related fields,…Read More→

The San Francisco Bay Area market continues to sizzle along, with San Francisco, the Peninsula and Silicon Valley leading the way. Oakland is humming with overflow requirements leaving San Francisco for rents half or less and at some point Oakland, with a Class A office vacancy downtown at 8 percent will run out of space…Read More→

The San Francisco Bay Area commercial real estate frenzy continues, with hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space absorption during the past 60 days, still record low interest rates, and billions of dollars chasing a limited supply of investment real estate. This issue marks the 35th anniversary of OfficeTimes, which started with just a few…Read More→

One of the scariest, but most fun parts of writing this newsletter (and the next issue will start the 35th year) is I get to stick my neck out and make dramatic predictions. All of my past predictions are still out there in writing, and for the most part, during these 34 years, all have…Read More→

Last month I gave a San Francisco Bay Area commercial real estate market forecast to a room filled with lawyers, CPAs, and real estate professionals, covering industrial, apartments, retail and office in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and the I-880, I-680, and I-580 corridors. What made this fun for me was the opportunity to interview top…Read More→

Why do office tenants relocate? They may need more space and their existing landlord is unable to accommodate them; they may need to downsize at the end of their lease term and their space is not easily divisible; they might want to be in the newest fancy office building with more bells and whistles; or…Read More→

Why do office tenants relocate? They may need more space and their existing landlord is unable to accommodate them; they may need to downsize at the end of their lease term and their space is not easily divisible; they might want to be in the newest fancy office building with more bells and whistles; or…Read More→

For the first time since 2007, I am beginning to see signs of cautious corporate expansion in the East Bay, almost like watching the spring blooms begin to emerge after a long, cold winter. Professional organizations and corporations have run lean as long as possible and are now tentatively thinking about expansion … It’s been…Read More→

Designing perks into tech space … two key reasons many tech companies offer employee perks – the first is to gain or keep a competitive hiring edge against the competition – if everyone is offering tech employees six-figure salaries, the free meals prepared on-site by the in-house gourmet chef, or free dry cleaning, or the…Read More→

Slow and steady… other than a very few sub-regions of the United States where the office leasing activity is at a frenzied level (i.e., San Francisco), most of the country is experiencing a slow but steady recovery in the office sector. Class A rental rates have gone up, vacancy rates in many markets for the…Read More→

What makes a healthy office market? When vacancy rates begin to dip below 10 percent, construction cranes show up to alleviate future space scarcity, and when rates hover higher than 20 percent, the Grim Reaper of Foreclosure waves his evil staff over underwater over leveraged properties. With the San Francisco East Bay vacancy rate around…Read More→

Recently I’ve been giving a number of speeches and presentations, including one on the Bay Area commercial real estate market. One needs to keep the audience excited (or at least attentive) so I talk about the San Francisco tech phenomenon, with kids in their 20s and 30s flocking to San Francisco from all over the…Read More→

October 11th marks the day I first started in commercial real estate… before smart phones, iPads, mp3 and internet… Wow, issue #200 of the Officetimes.com newsletter, started back in 1980 to share office industry thoughts, trends and predictions with clients and those interested in the office space industry. It started out with a few hundred…Read More→

Just where are we with the current commercial real estate market? The San Francisco Bay Area may be representative of a number of regional markets across the United States. Multi-family, credit leased investments and strong, anchored retail are in a frothy buyers frenzy, with cap rates as low as 4 percent and multiple bidding wars…Read More→

Optimism crossing paths with conservative realism … office landlords in most parts of the United States feel optimistic about the future of their investments. Rental rates have increased, usually without commensurate supporting decreases in the vacancy rate, and buyers are paying top dollar for trophy and even less than trophy office buildings in many parts…Read More→

This issue marks the 33rd year of my writing and publishing Officetimes Corporate Office Perspectives. I started this newsletter way back on June 1, 1980, sending it to a few hundred business contacts and corporate executives. Back then I was able to handwrite personal notes to many of the recipients, and even when the mailing…Read More→

With few exceptions, the U.S. office market is expected to continue its slow grind of recovery, with moderate rental rate increases anticipated in many areas. Without any (other than healthcare) significant hiring trends, it will just be a continuation of 2012. Exceptions to this are the San Francisco Bay Area, Houston and oil-industry regions, and…Read More→

The view of the U.S. office market from 50,000 feet … (just under 10 miles …) Overall much of the United States is experiencing a slight firming of the office market after four+ years of freefall following the 2007 financial and housing market collapse. Certain submarkets are strong, such as Houston with its oil industry,…Read More→

The office market ‘Big Picture’: I am in a group of 70 office tenant representation brokers, and our members are based in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, Vancouver, Dallas etc. Overall, the national trends are a sluggish hiring environment, where both large and small firms are reluctant to take on new permanent…Read More→

San Francisco Tech Mecca … Since early 2010, San Francisco’s number of tech sector workers has grown by 13,000, hitting 44,000 … 150 tech companies have opened for business, with the tech company total now at about 1,850 companies … as one tech-company founder stated, “San Francisco is the clear place for expansion to happen…Read More→

The San Francisco and Peninsula office markets are on fire, and Silicon Valley is in a leasing frenzy as well.  Yet, just 30 miles away in Pleasanton, Walnut Creek and Concord, Class A office space is available at 50 to 70 percent lower rents with abundant supply.   The answer to “Why is that?” can be answered…Read More→

WOW, this 192nd Issue marks the 32nd year I have written and published this OfficeTimes industry newsletter! Back in 1980, most Walnut Creek office buildings were 100 percent leased, and during the preceding three years, rental rates along the I-680 corridor went up an average of 25 to 30 percent per year. Of course, everything…Read More→