There was a recent announcement of the largest office deal done in the past 12 months in the Oakland area. Delta Dental leased the third floor of 1333 Broadway (where 40 years ago I had my offices at Grubb & Ellis), and while it was great that this ‘largest’ deal was done, the size of…Read More→

  On average, wrote Jerry Nickelsburg, an adjunct professor of economics at UCLA who helped run the survey, participants in both Northern and Southern California “expect both rental rates and occupancy rates to weaken in the coming year” and do not expect the sector to make a full recovery by 2026. San Francisco Business Times August…Read More→

  Today Google reduced the amount of funds budgeted for closing offices which might be a sign that perhaps the layoffs and worker reductions were coming to an end.  They spent $69 million in cutting space this last quarter, down from$565 million it spent the first quarter of 2023.  There was also a report out…Read More→

Credits to Stephen Newbold, National Director of Office Research for Colliers. The national vacancy rate just went up to 16.4%, which is a record high. The suburban rate is 16.0% and CBD rate is 17.3%. There are 88 million square feet of new office buildings under construction, with 12 mil in New York City, 8.1…Read More→

ResumeBuillder surveyed 1,500 full-time corporate workers in June, 2023 and found that: 85% of workers go to the office at least once a week 63% said going to the office improves productivity, top reason being more efficient teamwork 13% said productivity goes down in the office, and 25% of these say it’s a result of…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→

I was on a conference call this morning with senior SIOR office members from all around the country and while their office markets are not faring well, no where does it appear to be in the deep hole that is prevalent today in San Francisco. With a 30% overall vacancy rate and major users still…Read More→

I’ve been making predictions of the office market in my newsletter, now in its 43rd year of publication. My predictions have almost always come true, and these can be substantiated through my published back issues. There will be several varying factors that will be part of how our office space market stabilizes, and unfortunately with…Read More→

There area large group of folks, including most office building owners, landlord leasing agents, and older executive heads of thousands of companies, who still hold a belief that at some point in the not-to-distant future office workers will return to the office in force. This will be a combination of executive mandate, the recognition that…Read More→

Tidewater Capital just received approval for a 420,000 sf Oakland CA office tower, so Hope Springs eternal with office developers despite the current and near-term market. At least one regional bank is requiring employees back to the office. AT&T is mandating managers return to the office, and Blackrock is requiring four-days a week in the…Read More→

Artificial intelligence may allow companies to dramatically reduce their workforce. Bisnow May 8, 2023, “IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told Bloomberg that back-office functions like HR would be paused in many cases because the roles can be undertaken by AI. He said the company employed about 26,000 people in noncustomer-facing roles, and about a third of…Read More→

The latest Colliers national office report shows sublease space at a record high, negative net absorption, and overall office vacancy in the United States now at 6.1%. “The gap between asking and effective rents remains significant. Tenant improvement allowances of $100 per square foot or more, accompanied by up to 10 to 18 months of…Read More→

Artificial intelligence in camera-based security may be dramatically changing crime deterrence.  Surveillance cameras are not just motion-detectors but with integrated AI algorithms they can detect intruders and appropriately set off lights, voice warnings, shrieking sirens, and trigger immediate reporting to guards or managers and allowing engagement directly with the intruder over the camera and speakers….Read More→

FacilityExecutive Magazine April 2023 had a sobering prescription for corporate real estate executives faced with excess office space, employees not expected to return to the office, a looming recession and in general no expectations that the vacant space will be occupied anytime soon. “To begin with everything must be on the table: Restack office space,…Read More→

In an article written by John McNellis, one of the top commercial real estate gurus, and published in the SF Business times April 28, 2023, John lays out the case that at least in San Francisco, office buildings may have lost 60% if their value, compared to just a few years ago before Covid taught…Read More→

Lyft recently mandated that all employees must work in the office Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with Tuesdays recommended. They will also be allowed to work remotely one month each year, and those living too far from offices are not required to come in. Many call centers have remote workers, and some have begun to make…Read More→

  We are hearing about more office buildings rumored to be having financial issues. In some cases, there is a mortgage loan coming due and the owner is having trouble refinancing as recently many insurance lenders and banks have made office loans ‘off limits’. It may be that the vacancy of the building has increased…Read More→

Bisnow April 17, 2023 reported that while March 2022 President Biden said ‘in his State of the Union address that the vast majority of federal workers would soon return to the office…that didn’t happen last year, and the process has not always gone smoothly.” There have been federal agencies who mandated that all employees return…Read More→

The Colliers U.S. Capital Markets report just out stated that in 2021 there were 10.9 billion in distressed commercial real estate sales, decreasing to $7.9 billion in 2022, and ‘Since 2016, distress has accounted for 1.4% of volume on average. Distress peaked in 2010 at 18.7% of volume. Absolute distress sales peaked in 2011 at…Read More→

David Amsterdam, President of Colliers U.S. Capital Markets put out his latest report.   Year Over Year, Office is down 66%; Industrial is down 52%; Multifamily is down 76%; Retail is up 36%; and Hospitality is down 53%. Unless you have a totally leased office building, credit tenants with terms longer than the loan it…Read More→

SPUR and ULI San Francisco along with Gensler and HR&A Advisors did a study regarding the feasibility of converting office buildings to residential projects. “Because of their physical characteristics, office buildings in San Francisco are stronger candidates for conversion than office buildings in other cities in North America. For projects to be financially feasible, the value…Read More→

Nicole Goodkind of CNN wrote in an article headlined “Commercial real Estate Is In trouble. Why you should be paying attention”, that office and retail property valuations have been falling sine the pandemic brought about lower occupancy rates and changes where people work and how they shop. The Fed’s efforts to fight inflation by raising…Read More→

Laura Waxman, reporter for the SF Business Times, wrote yesterday that investors who purchased office buildings prior to 2020 paid top dollar. I remember prices of $800-1000 per square foot or more announced back in the good old days before the pandemic hit. “Companies paid top dollar for amenity-rich workplaces designed to keep employees both…Read More→

  Between 2029 and 2022, according to the SF Business Times, the share of workers living near its office locations fell, with the largest drop of 70% occurring in San Francisco,  followed by New York, Washington D.C. and Chicago falling by 67%, with the number of Yelp workers living in Florida and Texas going up…Read More→

  Meta (Facebook) just put 432,000 square feet of Class A San Francisco office space on the sublease market, with a lease term running until March 2031. This adds office inventory to the current 28% San Francisco office vacancy. Up in Portland, KBS REITS just defaulted on a 224,000 sf LEED Gold-certified office building with…Read More→

  Janet Pogue McLaurin with Gensler, one of the nation’s gurus on predicting the future of corporate office layouts, functionality, and many other nuances of the office environment, wrote an article illustrating the key findings of a recent Gensler survey of CoreNet Global end users. ”Respondents rated the space effectiveness for each of the five…Read More→

  “The Bay Area was ranked first on a list of 10 markets that lenders are most concerned about in terms of performance in 2023, according to a report released by real estate firm CBRE this month.  Phoenix and Portland rank No. 2 and 3, respectively, with Western markets Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Portland…Read More→

Bisnow Dumber 16, 2022  “More than 71% of corporate real estate professionals say they expect hybrid work to result in space demand reductions of at least 20%, according to a survey from Colliers and CoreNet Global. Almost 19% expect that demand to shrink by 40% or more, while just 7% believe that the move to…Read More→

At the Bisnow December 8, 2022 D.C. Region Finance and Deal-Makers Summit, major commercial real estate lenders discussed how they are dealing with the current turbulent times. “The pullback is happening across all asset classes, given how this year’s sharp rise in interest rates has dramatically altered the math for new deals. But Ekeroth, Regional Director with Northwestern…Read More→

According to a new survey by Clarify Capital and reported by SF Business Times December 12, 2022, “The survey found about 68% of those working remotely would prefer to look for a new job with remote options if forced to return. About 27% would try to negotiate a higher salary instead of searching for a…Read More→

  Meta has placed 114,000 sf off office space in Fremont on the sublease market. It is also rumored to be considering giving up 430,000 sf at 181 Fremont St. in San Francisco. Pinterest giving up a chunk of their San Francisco office space. Salesforce just this week considering giving up more space in San…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→

In The SFRegistry December 2, 2022, Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce said this: “There’s a lot of things pre-pandemic that we had in our company that are expenses that we don’t need post-pandemic,” Benioff stated. “So before the pandemic, the percentage of remote workers for Salesforce was approximately 20 percent. For other companies…Read More→

In a BisNow article published November 17, 2022, “Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed plan to improve or expand their existing occupancy, Many are also implementing new procedures or technologies to help manage the shifting flor of employees into the office. Although hybrid work schedules are now the norm for 70% of workers, only one-third of…Read More→

The New York Times recently published a lengthy article titled ‘After pandemic, office buildings are still in trouble”. “ The value of office buildings could plunge 39%, or $454 billion, in the comping years, according to a recent study by business professors at Columbia University and New York University…In a sign of how fast the…Read More→

  Texas Instruments just signed a lease for 210,000 square feet at Santa Clara’s Great American Commons, Exelixis signed for 100,000 at The Loop in Alameda’s Harbor Bay, and Convene signed for 65,000 square feet of office space at 100 Stockton St. in San Francisco.  

Credit for this statement goes to Jessica Pernicone, principal at JLL. “There is a certain amount of productivity you can get from being at home when you have heads-down deep work. However, if that’s not what your job requires all the time there are feelings of isolation and people start to feel disconnected from their…Read More→

  Colliers newest report on the future of work had some very interesting thoughts. “30-50% of knowledge management work is anticipated to be automated by 2030. This will result in less real estate and facilities and more reliance on machine learning and predictive analytics to support real estate functions.” …”The office will evolve to be…Read More→

Joseph Gordon with Bisnow wrote on November 8, 2022 that according to a number of sources, new office leases showed 18% fewer deals as compared to Q3 2021, and 15% less than Q3 2019. The average size of the deal also went down 16% in 2022 as compared to 2019. Leases are also getting shorter…Read More→

Bisnow October 27, 2022 reported “Dave Welner, chief financial officer of the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other platforms, said on its third-quarter earnings call Wednesday that Meta expects to lose roughly $2B from its cutback on office leases this year.”. Then today Meta said it was slashing 11,000 jobs.  Lyft is trying…Read More→

  THEREGISTRY November 4, 2022, Cresa reported that Bay Area leasing activity to date remains 50.2 percent below 2019 levels during the same timeframe and in the last year, 3.6 million square feet of direct space has been added to landlords availability.  There is demand for trophy office space in San Francisco, upper floors with…Read More→

  According to the latest Colliers U.S. Research Report, office vacancy went up in the third quarter 2022 with San Francisco and Seattle posting the largest increases and Dallas and Houston seeing their vacancy rate come down. San Francisco is now above 20% as compared with Manhattan which is at 11%. “Class A asking rates…Read More→

Between 2018 and 2021, 352 Corporate headquarters have left California. The three top relocation destinations were Texas, Tennesee and Nevada. The main reasons given for thir exodus include California’s high taxes, the cost of living, the heavy regulations and the legal environment. Of the 153 that left just last year, 80 dwere from Los Angeles,…Read More→

  “ABI Research forecasts sensor shipments will grow from 18.5 million devices to surpass 300 million by 2030, a CAGR of 35%.  “Traditionally, sensing in the commercial building sensing market has been tied to establish systems, such as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), fire and safety, and access control, but a range of additional environmental sensing technologies,…Read More→