181Sep 1, 2020
San Francisco now has an estimated 6.5 million square feet of office sublease space. Direct Class A rents are still among the highest in the country, averaging $84 an annual square foot, but Class B rates are now in the $50-60/rsf range. In the Bay Area several companies have announced they will relocate their headquarters…Read More→
182Aug 31, 2020
A number of regions are reporting an avalanche of new office sublease space. I was on an SIOR national broker call and my associate in Dallas, Texas said they had 4.6 million square feet of new office sublease space come on the market in just the past three months. She reported that in one day…Read More→
183Aug 30, 2020
I have been reading more and more about folks paying astronomical rents (ie $5-6,000 for a two-bedroom in SF) or crazy-high home prices (median home price in San Francisco $1.3 million) packing up and heading to Lake Tahoe, to Austin Texas, and other regions. I have associates who moved to remote areas of California where…Read More→
184Jul 30, 2020
It was expected by many in the office industry that with the pandemic now in its 6th month occupancy levels would be in the 25-50% range, but a number of national landlords report occupancy much lower. “Oxford Properties U.S. Head Office Chris Mundy said his firm had initially expected buildings would reach around 25% occupancy…Read More→
185Jul 29, 2020
There has been a lot of hype on the world getting a vaccine in late 2020, or early 2021, after which life will hopefully return to normal. However the announcement by one of the smartest and largest corporations in the world, Google, that they will let employees work from home until at least July 2021…Read More→
186Jul 17, 2020
I attended a webinar this week with office specialists from JLL, C&W, Cresa and Newmark Knight Frank, representing San Francisco, the Peninsula, the East Bay and Silicon Valley. In San Francisco for the most part when March hit, the world just stopped. Nothing was happening, and tenants only did what they had to do. Along…Read More→
187Jul 16, 2020
First off, I am in no way an expert in this but just an office broker who has spent many decades representing office tenants in their space needs. However, I have been doing a lot of reading and researching. If your building has openable windows, great, let the outside fresh air in. Most newer buildings…Read More→
188Jul 15, 2020
In an article today in GlobeSt.com, a recent survey by Gensler found that only 12% of workers want to work full-time from home and 70% said they want to spend most of their week in the office. “Meetings, socializing and impromptu face-to-face interactions with colleagues were ranked as the top reasons people wanted to head…Read More→
189Jul 7, 2020
The Society of Office and Industrial Realtors (SIOR), of which I have been a proud member for over thirty years, interviews top brokers on a variety of issues and publishes these interviews. Neil Dailey, SIOR, office broker with McGraw Commercial Properties in Tulsa, Oklahoma, stated this about the new view of office buildings: “I also…Read More→
190Jul 6, 2020
Nikkei Asian Review just reported that Fujitsu will cut their office space in Japan in half over the next three years. Teleworking will be made a standard practice, and Fujitsu has introduced a policy that will limit the number of employees in the office at any one time to just a quarter to its total….Read More→
191Jul 2, 2020
Real Capital Analytics, which tracks national commercial real estate sales, reported on June 25, 2020 that May sales volume was down 79% year over year. Industrial was the best performer category (only down 70%), office volumes were down 82% and apartments were down 81%. Retail dropped 83%, and all of the above looked comparatively strong…Read More→
192Jul 1, 2020
There have been a number of reports, both regionally as well as nationally, that predict corporations will begin leasing suburban office space to accomplish several goals. First, they need to increase employee separation during the pandemic, and it is much cheaper to lease space in the suburbs to accomplish this. Secondly, companies that are above…Read More→
193Jul 1, 2020
San Francisco has over 4.5 million square feet of available office space for sublease, and some brokers are predicting that this may cause direct office space rents to drop by as much as 10-20%. The Covid-19 is not the only reason for this spike in available space. There were a number of new office projects…Read More→
194Jun 29, 2020
In National Real Estate Investor June 2020 Elaine Misonzhnik writes on page 3, “The virus might be with us indefinitely. (The World Health Organization has predicted it might take up to five years to get it under control.) And to declare the end of cities, decide that everyone should work and learn from home permanently…Read More→
195Jun 20, 2020
To quote Michael Tannenbaum, CFO of BREX, “Think of the office as a perk what you offer…when you start to think of it has a perk, you can start to say, are we getting the value out of this office relative to other things we can be offering?”. I have to totally disagree with this…Read More→
196Jun 17, 2020
The Society of Industrial and Office Brokers (SIOR), the elite national organization of the top office and industrial brokers in the country, just surveyed their membership. One SIOR commented he has seen rent discounts of between 10 and 13 percent due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that during the last three down cycles rents ended…Read More→
197May 28, 2020
Salesforce, with 9,000 employees in three San Francisco office towers, will have temperature scans on every floor, mandatory masks, six-foot separations, hand sanitizers everywhere and cleaning throughout the day. Work areas and conference rooms will be at half-capacity or less and employees will arrive at staggered times. The Bay Area Council surveyed 123 companies last…Read More→
198May 14, 2020
Twitter just announced to its 1,000 San Francisco office employees that if they wanted to continue working from home, they could on a permanent basis. What will happen to Twitter’s very cool downtown HQ remains to be seen. The San Francisco Business Times also interviewed a number of smaller 2,000-4,000 square foot office users in…Read More→
199May 11, 2020
Miriam Hall of Bisnow reported yesterday that Vornado Realty Trust said two-thirds of delinquent tenants were credit-worthy, ‘but businesses are hurting and the future is uncertain’.” Vornado collated 90% of office rents and 53% of retail rents in April and May looks to be similar. Office occupancy is currently 5%. Vice-Chairman David Greenbaum said “I…Read More→
200May 5, 2020
Bisnow just reported a study by CoreNet, which is the corporate real estate directors organization, that based on a survey conducted between April 22 and April 27, 2020, polling its 11,000 person membership, 69% of corporate real estate professionals said their company would take less real estate after spending time working from home. Another survey…Read More→
201May 4, 2020
Nationwide Insurance said it will permanently exit most buildings outside its four main campuses and move those associates to permanent remote-working status. I wonder what will happen to those employees who live with small children, roommates, or don’t have adequate quiet working space…I’m also wondering how many other major office users are considering this same…Read More→
202Apr 29, 2020
According to a recent Savills Research report, over the past several months since the shelter-in-place shutdown of office buildings there has been a 300% increase in office sublease availability, with over 3.7 million square feet of space currently available. “It is likely that sublease space will increase further – placing downward pressure on overall asking…Read More→
203Apr 27, 2020
Interesting survey results that 75% of office workers have occasionally worked from home but now with shelter in place almost everyone working full-time from home. 54% report no change in productivity, while 24% reported an increase in productivity. The home environments least effective are those with children and those with roommates. The kitchen is one…Read More→
204Apr 13, 2020
First, it is important to keep in mind a win-win collaborative negotiation and at almost all costs to avoid litigation and the court system. Tenant asks for three months’ rent relief; Landlord compromises and accepts 50% rent for three months with no repayment. Tenant asks for three months’ rent relief; Landlord accepts 50% rent for…Read More→
205Apr 9, 2020
Over the past week I have been on a number of commercial real estate podcasts and webinars, trying to learn what is happening and will happen to our commercial real estate market in the United States. Here are a few nuggets I have picked up. One international real estate company interviewed a number of their…Read More→
206Mar 5, 2020
Some of the ‘WeWork’ business models of collaborative office space are set up for very high density rations, even though it is seldom an issue of everyone showing up at work. However, if the workspaces are shared, and you don’t have a dedicated space as the coronavirus becomes more prevalent will there be issues with…Read More→
207Feb 28, 2020
40 million square feet of new office construction during just the past 10 years in Silicon Valley. The unemployment rate is currently 2.2%, substantially below the national average. Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook have accounted for a significant portion of the overall leasing. According to Lena Tutko, senior research director with Colliers, “We are not…Read More→
208Feb 26, 2020
Unbelievable office market in Silicon Valley with over 10 million square feet of new office projects under construction with over 75% already preleased! Google is partially responsible for this leasing frenzy, taking millions of square feet of office product. In a sad comparison, over in the East Bay with the Tri-Valley and I-680 Corridor we…Read More→
209Feb 20, 2020
Published in the National Real Estate Investor January/February 2020, Jim Costello, SVP of Real Capital predicts industrial will continue growing at double digit rates, many investors and lenders will continue to hate retail, and suggests caution when taking on debt. ”There’s an ugliness of politics entering the investment process in the year ahead. We will…Read More→
210Jan 16, 2020
Concord Weapons Station Reuse Project City of Walnut Creek New Developments City of San Ramon Current Project List Colliers Retail Report Fall/Winter 2019 Colliers Oakland Office Report Q3 2019 Colliers Oakland Industrial Report Q3 2019 Colliers San Francisco – Peninsula Report Q3 2019 Colliers Pleasanton – Tri-Valley Industrial Report Q3 2019 Colliers Pleasanton – Tri-Valley…Read More→
211Jan 15, 2020
“We’ve been debating for a couple of years about what impact the new FASB rules would have on our business,” says Adam Kaduce, SIOR, senior vice president at R&R Specialty Group n West Des Moines., Iowa. “Frankly, we’ve seen very little FASB-related influence on how people are looking at real estate. It’s more about talent-retention….Read More→
212Jan 9, 2020
Over 9,800 retail stores closed in 2019
213Dec 26, 2019
Buildings Magazine November 2019 had an article on what amenities tenants should be investing in. Sodexo surveyed 3,593 employees around the world, and here are some of the results: For ‘Experience Enhancers’, Café or restaurant 71%; medical services/clinic: 66%; Car sharing or shuttle services: 62%; vending services: 61%. For ‘Experience Essentials’, Cleaning of the workplace:…Read More→
214Nov 14, 2019
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.
215Nov 13, 2019
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→
216Oct 29, 2019
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→
217Oct 22, 2019
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→
218Oct 9, 2019
What was that old saying regarding killing the golden goose that laid the golden eggs? Sure you get one solid gold geese feast but that is it for a future supply of golden eggs! The San Francisco Planning Commission just okayed a plan to raise office fees by 143%! Fees would go from $69.90 per…Read More→
219Aug 8, 2019
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→
220Aug 2, 2019
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→
221Jul 22, 2019
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
222Jul 15, 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→
223Jul 9, 2019
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→
224Jun 27, 2019
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→
225Nov 1, 2018
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→