Office rents up, office rents down – and it all depends on the very specific location and circumstance. I know there are similar examples all across the country to the ones I see here in the Bay Area. A large Class A office complex aggressively markets its vacant space until they get to 95 percent…Read More→

I wish this economy would get back on track so this OfficeTimes newsletter could be more upbeat – I know that even though office users today can get absolutely incredible lease renewal, relocation and owner/user purchase deals, almost legally stealing space, most wouldn’t mind paying higher prices in a robust economy where their sales and…Read More→

Dichotomies abound – San Francisco office rents are experiencing major increases, although the vacancy rate is still above 13 percent, while just 21 miles east, Class A suburban office rents are only $0.30/rsf a month higher than they were way back in 1991, 20 years ago (and no adjustment for inflation or tripled operating expenses.)  …Read More→

Transitional commercial real estate markets can make for interesting times.  In nearby office submarkets such as Downtown San Francisco, Palo Alto and the Peninsula, leasing is active and rental rates have gone up by as much as 25 percent, while investors have bid well‐leased quality office building prices back up towards “frothy” territory.  At the same time,…Read More→

Many of the first paragraphs of the past 30+ years OfficeTimes have pontificated at length on the current state of the office market or the broader commercial real estate industry.  This time, for a change, the message will be short and sweet – we are at the bottom of the commercial real estate recession in the…Read More→

Almost all of the office sector industry experts seem to agree that the worst is past and that we are near or at the bottom of the market.  What is still up for debate is how long we will bounce along the bottom, and what kind of recovery will we have for the office market.  There will…Read More→

February 22, 2012 … for several years now this is the date I’ve been predicting when the office market will officially change from Tenant to Landlord … no robust recovery expected as no major hiring engines are in sight, and we need massive hiring to fill all the office vacancies to push rental rates back…Read More→

I recently gave a speech predicting where our commercial real estate market was headed and near the end of the presentation, I announced when the office market would turn around.  The caveat, of course, is that certain submarkets will recover sooner and others later.  Don’t expect a rebound like the dotcom boom because we have a lot…Read More→

Commercial real estate office tenants Good News department:  Office tenants can lock in long‐term low rent leases in most U.S. regions and negotiate landlord concessions that may have been difficult to obtain just a few years ago.  Tenant improvement contractors, for the most part, are aggressive in their bids.  There are a wide range of government rebates, tax…Read More→

The office market is beginning its recovery in a number of subregions such as the San Francisco Peninsula and Silicon Valley, but lagging in other areas like the Pleasanton/San Ramon Tri‐Valley and Walnut Creek/Concord areas.  For several years, I have been predicting (but hoping I would be wrong) the office market wasn’t going to recover in…Read More→

This issue marks the 30th year I have been writing and publishing this office newsletter every other month, reportedly the longest running private office industry newsletter in the country … and you can’t beat the price! I did a rough estimate of how many copies have been distributed during this timeframe (starting with my first…Read More→

During recent weeks I’ve given a number of presentations forecasting what might happen to the office market during the next few years. In preparing for those, I’ve had to scour economic forecasts from a variety of sources, government, lender, and industry predictions, and lastly I have interviewed my peers and mentors. My office leasing broker…Read More→

For the past several years it has been a dilemma on how to start off this first OfficeTimes paragraph about the current and near-future state of the office market. Doom and gloom, or try to paint out something positive? Here is the good news, from my Exclusive Tenant Representative perspective – although landlords cringe at…Read More→

For the past several years it has been a dilemma on how to start off this first OfficeTimes paragraph about the current and near-future state of the office market. Doom and gloom, or try to paint out something positive? Here is the good news, from my Exclusive Tenant Representative perspective – although landlords cringe at…Read More→

I’ve heard various reports forecasting up to 25 percent of all office buildings and shopping centers around the United States involuntarily changing ownership during the next three years, either through foreclosure or other legal processes. This is roughly the percentage of the Class A and Class B office inventory that went under during the early…Read More→

There are long-term NNN investments offered with returns as high as 9 percent or less, but investors with cash wonder if they should still wait. There are long-term office lease deals at less than 50 percent of what it would actually cost to rent a new building, but office tenants hesitate to commit long term…Read More→

I am one of the few 100 percent tenant rep and owner-user sales specialists still in business. The majority of commercial brokers primarily represent landlords as well as tenants. Low rents and lots of tenant lease concessions may be great for my clients who are ready and able to commit to new leases or lease…Read More→

This 174th issue of OfficeTimes marks the 29th year of every-other month publication, one of the longest-running individual office trends newsletters in the country. Many office brokers start a newsletter, but speaking from personal experience, it is so daunting to get the second and third issue written that just about everyone soon abandons their venture….Read More→

Let’s just start out with the brutal news – this recession will be long and ugly … those who were hoping for some type of late-2009 or even early 2010 recovery may be sorely disappointed, but look at how many years we spent borrowing and spending beyond our means – it’s like life after a…Read More→

What is the “Big Picture” macro view for the 2009/2010 office space market in the United States? I post almost-daily blogs on commercial real estate at http://jeffreyweil.blogspot.com/ and it has been increasingly difficult to report positive news about the office market from just about any angle, unless you are an office tenant currently in the…Read More→

We are by nature optimists, us humans, and those of us in commercial real estate even more so, and sales folks and developers are probably at the far end of the optimism scale – how else could we survive the ups, downs and travails that are ingrained in what we do? Take the case of…Read More→

The office market today feels like it is moving in slow motion. Office tenants have more uncertainty about where their businesses or industries are headed and, for the most part, are taking two to three times longer to make office facility decisions than in previous years. I wish this extra contemplation time resulted in more…Read More→

I recently attended the national Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR) conference in Washington, D.C. where 800 of the top office and industrial brokers in the Country gathered to learn how to provide better corporate client service, what new trends are coming our way, new advances in green office redevelopment and much more. It…Read More→

How is the office market? Two sides of the same coin – I get asked this basic question all the time. There are several, quite different ways to answer this. If you are an office building owner in San Mateo or San Francisco who either has owned the building for a long time or bought…Read More→

Commercial real estate investment market update: “A number of unfavorable market forces are closing in on commercial real estate investors, threatening to compromise asset values in 2008. After a tremendous run in which commercial real estate values in the U.S. rose 90 percent over a five-year period, prices fell 1.2 percent on average from August…Read More→

Global Warming and Eco-Thought … the California Public Utilities Commission is considering a “zero net energy goal” for new commercial buildings constructed after 2030, where enough electricity is generated by the building to power all of their needed functions. California Real Estate Journal (October 15, 2007) … whether or not it ever gets this extreme…Read More→

“On August 28th, 2007 at precisely 3:25 p.m., the office investment market peaked – however, it may take buyers and sellers up to six months before they fully realize this phenomenon.” I made this statement almost a month ago when I was giving a speech on the current and future state of the San Francisco…Read More→

Green Building Update: “LEED buildings use 20-50 percent less energy and cut carbon emission by as much as 40 percent more than conventional buildings,” according to Taryn Holowka, spokeswoman for the U.S. Green Building Council, Contra Costa Times (5/31/07). “Silver-level LEED certification is believed to add roughly 2-3 percentage points to total construction costs, with…Read More→

“After three years of steady increases, asking rates have started to jump at an accelerated rate in the first quarter of 2007, according to market reports. As of a week before the end of the first quarter, landlords in San Francisco’s central business district ratcheted up average asking rates from $40 to nearly $42.75. If…Read More→

“Boston is expected to become the first major city in the nation to require private developers to adhere to a strict set of so-called green building standards, officials said yesterday. The standards will be required before permits are issued for all projects of 50,000 square feet or more. The goal is to make new buildings…Read More→

A few weeks ago I spoke to the Investment Marketing Forum on the current and future state of the Bay Area office market. In summary, there are 72 million square feet of vacant available office space in the Bay Area, with 46 million feet of this in San Jose. Office rents in a number of…Read More→

December 2006 Bay Area office market snapshot: Office vacancies continue their slow downward trending, while in most subregions office rents inch upwards. Office negotiations are still competitive in nature, and smart landlords aggressively lease their projects today versus holding empty space for higher rents in 2008. In San Francisco, more than 1.8 million feet of…Read More→

Is this the quiet before the storm or a slice of office market tranquility? The past few months have been relatively calm, with few large Bay Area office transactions to report. However, office rental rates in a number of sub-regions continue to rise even without significant vacancy rate decreases. Existing office product seems to be…Read More→

San Francisco’s office leasing market has had 12 straight quarters of rising rents and decreasing vacancies. One broker predicted “rents will creep up, and vacancy rates will inch down.” Another San Francisco broker said “deals over $50 per annual square foot represented almost 28 percent of total absorption in the last quarter.” Thus creeping rents…Read More→

I recently wrote an article titled “The East Bay office market is in balance (temporarily)” published in the May 12, 2006 East Bay Business Times www.officetimes.com/EBOfficeMarket.htm. In general, throughout not just the East Bay, but much of the Bay Area, both office landlords and tenants feel the market is in their favor. Landlords point to…Read More→

Corporate Office Perspectives | April 1, 2006

“Cafeterias. Fitness centers. Covered parking. Proximity to a highway. The things that draw prospective tenants to a building are also the things that help keep them there … amenities play a big role in employee recruitment and retention … they are keyed in to attracting highly skilled and in-demand employees … what does it take…Read More→

“The San Francisco office market has continued to tighten in the fourth quarter, falling 50 basis points to 13.2 percent, according to the latest market report from Colliers International. The rate – the lowest in four years – is down 200 basis points from this time last year and may venture into the single digits…Read More→

“The San Francisco office market has continued to tighten in the fourth quarter, falling 50 basis points to 13.2 percent, according to the latest market report from Colliers International. The rate – the lowest in four years – is down 200 basis points from this time last year and may venture into the single digits…Read More→

Office vacancy rates continue to decline in almost all parts of the United States. In the Bay Area, San Francisco is down to 12 to 16 percent depending upon whom you ask, subregions like Walnut Creek are below 10 percent, and for the first time since the dotbomb era, there is even speculation on when…Read More→

Slowly, in some regions steadily, the U.S. office market continues to improve, inching its way down the vacancy chart and in a number of subregions gradually firming or increasing rental rates. In the San Francisco Bay Area, on the surface it appears we have substantial vacant office and R & D space, with some estimates…Read More→

What’s my opinion of the current office market? Glad you asked … In general, in 2004 the U.S. office market bottomed. In most, but not all regions, rents are beginning to creep up, vacancies are diminishing and at least in California, office land and obsolete buildings are being converted to more valuable residential development. There…Read More→

For office building landlords, good news left and right (but for office tenants news that may be economically painful in the future) … Recent headlines: “Revival In Office Rentals,” SF Chronicle (4/9/05); “Finally, An Uptick in Office Rents,” National Real Estate Investor (May 2005); “Large Blocks of Office Space Are Becoming Scarce,” City Feet (4/3/05);…Read More→

What an office market! On the one hand, there are encouraging signs of improvement, and yet a number of submarkets report excitedly about the positive absorption getting the local vacancy rate down from 17 to 16 percent or 25 percent down to 20 percent, or in a relatively “hot” market, down to 12 percent. Yes,…Read More→

Hopefully this is not a premature conclusion, but there are a number of signs that indicate the San Francisco Bay Area may already be on its way to recovery. Before you break out the fireworks in celebration, please note that this may be a slow recovery and uneven between different Bay Area sub-regions. The recent…Read More→