In my personal experience succussfully subleasing hundreds of thousnds of feet of office space, in generral subleasing can be a challenge. You often don’t have a full five-year term to offer, here are usually limiited or no tenant improvement dollars available so the subtenant must take the space as-is, the terms of the Master-lease…Read More→

As I check out East Bay office buildings, I am still seeing many sparsely occupied parking lots…especially Mondays and Fridays but surprisingly, also mid-week.” In May 2026, data from WFH Research showed that about 28% of paid days were done from home in the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metro area. That number is almost exactly the same as…Read More→

This is just my opinion and I finish my 50th year specializing in the leasing and selling of Eastbay commercial real estate. I’ve been through a number of transitions, when the market either goes up or down, and I still remember in my early days when the office vacancy rate in San Francisco was less…Read More→

The past almost-four months of the Iran war has injected some amount of business uncertainty into the commercial real estate arena. While we are in no way out of the woods yet, if this cease fire holds and both sides work torwards a mutually-benificial resololution  the war has had and will continue to have an…Read More→

I think it depends on the type of individual, type of job function and a lot of other factors.. If I had to commute tone or wo hours each way to get to my office I would be depressed regardless. “Remote work has soared in popularity since the COVID-19 pandemic. But, a new study suggests…Read More→

Anne Cosgrove, Editorial Director for Business Facilities Magazine, wrote in the March/April 2026 issue wrote…”For site selectors and corporate leaders, location decisions are no longer about cost – they are about certainty, speed and long-term adaptability.  Communities that once competed primarily on incentives are now differentiating themselves through infrastructure readiness, energy capacity and workforce alignment….Read More→

Headlines in the May 21, 2026, SF Registry read “San Francisco captures 80% of all U.S. AI Venture Capital of Office Leasing Snaps Back”, ‘Ai companies have leased 10.6 million square feet of office space in the city since 2019, more than any other market in the world”.   However, the San Francisco office vacancy is…Read More→

“Overall vacancy closed Q1 at 28.7%, marking the largest quarterly decline since Q3 2019. San Francisco recorded its largest quarterly net occupancy gain in more than six years.” Derrick Daniels, Regional Research Director for Colliers International shared with me his latest findings. Currently ter ear 227 companies looking for over 7,500,000 square feet of San…Read More→

I sometimes get swept up in the grand scheme of what AI is doing to make corporations and their processes more efficient, but I saw a recent quote that brought it closer to home for me. n The San Francisco Business Times April 16, 2026, quoting Wen Sang, Co-founder of Genspark AI which had two…Read More→

Headlines from just one page of the San Francisco Business Times April 16, 2026 read as follows: Harvey AI doubles Space in Headquarters; Howard Street is Site of Anthropic Leasing Spree; Large Office Tenants Circle San Francisco Market Again…it appears there are dozens of 100,000 sf plus office prospects currently looking for San Francisco office…Read More→

April 6, 2026  By Roger Vincent  Los Angeles Times  “Capital Group declined to confirm the reported $ 210 million sale price for the Bank of America Plaza, but the building was last appraised in late 2024 at $212.5 million, down from $605 million 10 years earlier, according to Bloomberg. Capital Group paid about $150 per…Read More→

I have a very good friend who runs an engineering and manufacturing company with less than 200 employees. He recently told me the deeper he gets into the new AI tools the more he is convinced that within the next six months he won’t need half of his current employees. This is in engineering, administration,…Read More→

Even with Ai companies taking down millions of square feet of San Francisco Class A office space, the 123 Mission Street office building in the financial District of San Francisco was purchased by Juul I June 2009 for $397 million, a hefty $1,093/sf, to accommodate the rapid growth of its vaping business. This 363,000 square…Read More→

  The Registry reported that Newmark has identified 390 active requrements totaling 9 million square feet of San Francisco office demand. Half of this is AI. In one of my recent blogs, I reported that real estate consulting firm VTS predict if AI companies will lease 13 million square feet of office space in San…Read More→

Bisnow March 4, 2026 Amazon is planning to cut 49,000 desks from its office footprint in perhaps the biggest shift in its real estate strategy since it courted offers from cities and states for a second headquarters in 2017. Management told members of Amazon’s global real estate and facilities group on Feb. 3 that the company aims to…Read More→

Tesla can lease space anywhere they want, but as another case in point of how strong California is, Tesla just leased 108,000 square feet of research and development space at 45401 Research Drive in Fremont. Take that, Texas!

SF Business Times 1/20/26 “The tech industry’s embrace of stricter return-to-office policies will help fuel a 15% increase in San Francisco office leasing this year, real estate software company VTS said. The city’s fast-growing AI companies also will help ease almost 13 million square feet of San Francisco office space this year, VTS predicted.” I…Read More→

“For the past four years, the city has been rolling out the red carpet for developers or building owners to convert underutilized historic office buildings: cutting fees, slicing red tape, relaxing zoning restrictions, and eliminating both affordable housing requirements and transfer taxes. The city has about 30 million square feet of vacant office space. Despite…Read More→

First, Anthropic just leased 480,000 square feet of Class A office space at 300 Howard Street in downtown San Francisco for a 13-year lease term. Next, Roblox leased 325,000 square feet at San Mateo’s Bay Meadows and will have a total of 1 million square feet of office space. Thirdly, Tiger Global Management just signed…Read More→

Not sure of the dicotimy but the SF Business Times headlins 1/16/26 read “Signs of Promise for Oakland’s Office Market” and the subheading rea “Vacancy Rises but Net Absorption Drops in Optimistic Signal”…Where I grew up when the vacancy rate rises and net absorption drops, this is the opposite of any positive signs…then in today’s…Read More→

The San Francisco Business Times (1/9/25) reported that 6.8 million feet of San Francisco office space has been leased to AI companies! Wow! They also stated “Underused empty office buildings in the East Bay’s suburban markets are being eyed for residential developments in record numbers. So far, 1.3 million square feet of office space has…Read More→

“According to a survey of nearly 1,000 business leaders by Resume Builder, three in 10 companies plan to fully eliminate remote work in 2026 and have employees back in the office five days a week. Many companies have already taken that step in 2025, with a host of corporate titans and tech heavy-weights eliminating or…Read More→

Basically, there has been little news over the past month. AI continues to lease space in San Francisco, tech companies have been purchasing  office buildings in Silicon Valley, foreclosures and discounted commercial property debt continue, there is a lot of capital looking for solid investments, the $1-5 million dollar mom & pop retail and warehouse…Read More→

There has been so much positive news about new lease signings, some of them very signficant, and mostly fueled by the AI explosion which fortunately has been centered in San Francisco. Billions of dollars in new fundings and millions of feet of office space leased during the past year by this one industry category. However,…Read More→

  Office building sales continue to experience at times significant discounts as compared to pre-Covid values, and as a recent case in point 2001 Broadway in Oakland, California, a 56,000 square foot office building just closed escrow in October at a 76% price drop as compared to what it was purchased for in 1016.  $19.5…Read More→

FastCompany 10/28/25 reporting on Amazon announcing 14,000 layoffs, citing AI innovation, “While the memo makes clear that artificial intelligence is ushering in rapid changes that will result in leaner operations, an Amazon source said that AI was not behind the vast majority of the layoffs.”  These are not warehouse layoffs but ’corporate workforce’ employees who…Read More→

About to close escrow, according to TheRegistryy-9/18/25 , 201 California Street, San Francisco, a 272,000 square foot office property which was purchased in December 2019 for $239 million, $878/sf, may be going now for$57 million, $250/sf and a 75% discount…

Databricks is looking for 200,000 sf in Sunnyvale, another AI company making the news. Neuralink just took 144,000 sf at 499 Forbes Blvd. in South San Francisco. Pump.co leased 36,000 sf at 455 Market Street, AI Startup Abridge leased 80,000 sf at 208 Utah St., Anthropic took 104,000sf at Foundry Square III, Resolve I leased…Read More→

According to Derek Daniels, Regional Research Director for Colliers International, “In terms of the latest on tenant touring demand, “There are close to 7 million square feet of active office tenant requirements in San Francisco. This includes large blocks requirements seeking to expand. Ai and related industries are driving growth in the San Francisco office…Read More→

I have been hearing the rumors for several months, and there is still no official confirmation but yet another Class A major office complex out in the suburbs of San Ramon, California may be headed for demolition. I tried to tour an office client through 2000 Canyon Place which has a twin to tallying 320,000…Read More→

East Bay Times reporter George Avalos cited statistics from Cushman Wakefield that San Jose’s vacancy rate is 28.9%, improving from 30.9% during the first quarter, while Downtown Oakland’s office vacancy is at 37.2% and San Francisco at 34.8%…ouch ouch and ouch!  Meanwhile in San Ramon the Canyon Place, a four-building office complex is now slated…Read More→

One the one hand, “The half-decade push to bring employees back to the office after the onset of the pandemic has crossed a significant threshold, according to JLL: More than half of employees at Fortune 100 companies are now required to come in five days a week. July 23, 2025 “  ET Emily Wishingrad, Washington, D.C.  While…Read More→

I get caught up in my San Francisco East Bay region that I sometimes forget what is happening to our local office market may also be doing the same in other regions. The SF Business Times July 18, 2025, headlined “San Mateo’s Office Glut to Fuel Demolition Wave”, and describes how this 8 million square…Read More→

The Guardian July 13, 2025 “With financial districts struggling to bounce back to full capacity post-Covid, and the nightlife industry facing an existential crisis, there are suggestions clubs could move into deserted office blocks at evenings and weekends. In its annual eccentric report on the future of leisure, the creative studio Bompas and Parr says…Read More→

Bisnow May 29, 205, according to a CBRE report, “Artificial intelligence (AI) development likely will be a sizable driver of U.S. office demand over the next decade considering the impact it is already having on the country’s tech epicenter of San Francisco. AI-related companies have leased more than 5 million sq. ft. of San Francisco…Read More→

SF Business Times May 9, 2025 “Remote job postings in San Francisco have plunged 71% over the past three years, as employers claim leverage and a new generation of AI companies dries a return to in-person work…The shift refkects a cooling labor market and a rising number of companies from Uber to JPmorganChase mandating office…Read More→

  45 Fremont Street, San Francisco, a 620,000 square foot Class A office property owned by Shorenstein and Blackstone, goes back to market at direction of  lender Bank of America. With a loan value of $347 million this puts the debt at $560/SF, which pre-covid would make sense but in today’s office sale market with…Read More→

  On the one hand we have the recent announcement that the 260,000 SF Pacific Plaza office building at 1340 Treat Blvd. in Walnut Creek, directly across the street from the Pleasant Hill Bart Station, Class A and mostly leased to credit tenants, but plans now underway to replace it with 400 housing units. On…Read More→

There was an announcement in TheRegistry that Google is putting over 1,000,000 square feet of office space on the market at Pacific Shores, Redwood City.  Yesterday there was a press release that Workday in Pleasanton was putting a 209,000 square foot office building on the market, vacant. A week ago I toured a Concord office…Read More→

Two positive news releases just out regarding the San Francisco office market…the Transamerica Pyramid, which has gone through the first phase of a $250 million dollar renovation, just signed a 123,000 square foot long-term lease with the law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockus LLP.  This landmark office building is asking $300 per annual square foot…Read More→

There are a number of major factors that might prevent to return of a healthy office market. The pandemic showed corporations that they can be extremely profitable even with many of their employees working from home, and even though many companies now have RTO mandates ‘the toothpaste once out of the tube can be hard…Read More→

Globest.com reported that the 3,165-unit apartment complex in San Francisco, Parkmerced, is in default after the owner, Maximus Real Estate Partners defaulted on a $1.5 billion dollar loan backed by the complex.  There have also been articles like one in the March 20, 2025 Business Times “Paramount wrote the value of its investment in the…Read More→

I’ve been predicting that the private industry and government mandates that office workers return to the office will boost occupancy from the current 50% to 60% but not bring back pre-Covid levels is being born out. BisNow reported on March 10, 2025, that the average office foot traffic is 64% of 2019 levels and average…Read More→

According to the San Francisco Business Tims February 28, 2025, “A majority of San Francisco business leaders said their companies have plans to expand their offices in the city as they both push for more in-person work and grow headcount, according to a survey by KPMG. Three-quarters of the 100 San Francisco-based executives surveyed by…Read More→

  Two years ago at our annual Northern California SIOR Chapter event at the San Francisco Ferry Building, where major industrial developers forecast what they think this industry segment will be doing over the next year…I remember a consistent comments that their pencils were put away and that new Bay Area industrial development for the…Read More→