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→

Again and again, companies that can choose to locate to regions where there is plenty of low-cost office and research space, and where the cost of a new house is ridiculously cheap (i.e. under $250,000 for a decent home in a decent neighborhood) companies still choose to locate in the Bay.  Autonomous vehicle firm Aurora…Read More→

Governor Gavin Newsom “recently criticized Tennessee, which is an increasingly popular destination for Bay Area businesses and residents.  “I see that we’re CEO magazines ‘worst place in America to do business’ and yet our GDP growth outperforms every one of those other states they highlight,” Newsome said, citing California’s strong economic growth averaging 3.8% in…Read More→

Commercial building rooftops – Meet The Jetsons!  Most of you may be too young to remember the cartoon show back in 1962/1963 where everyone was getting to places in their personal flying cars.  Now Uber Elevate is planning a flying car business to use rooftop skyports to pick up and drop off passengers.  With a…Read More→

The first inside page of the May/June 2019 Business Facilities magazine was an ad for Michigan Economic, “The startup culture in Michigan is like no other.”  For sure, if you want very affordable housing, which according to Zillow, the median rent price is $850 and median home sales is $350,000.  Here in the overpriced and…Read More→

A recent article in the May 31, 2019 San Francisco Business Times reports that three years ago 34% of those surveyed said they may leave the Bay Area in a few years, the following year that figure increased to 46% and now 49% feel that way.  However, 74% said the Bay Area is a good…Read More→

In an article titled “Wealthy Millennials are leaving these states – and moving to these instead,” I had fully expected to see California at the top of the list of states folks were fleeing from, but was surprised!  Based on data provided by the IRS from the 2015 to 2016 tax year, a June 2019…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. A number of…Read More→

A recent Harvard Business School study of two Fortune 500 companies found that a cubicle-free workplace without private offices actually forces less face-to-face and more e-mailing and instant messaging. Employees have headphones on to drown out distracting noise. “There’s a natural human desire for privacy, and when we don’t have privacy, we find ways of…Read More→

A number of the major commercial brokerage companies reported a spike in the cost of office tenant improvements. In some regions the tenant improvement costs are rising much faster than the rental rates. Increases from 10 to 21% are hammering office landlords. “Key factors affecting the sudden rise in TI allowances include: 1) a significant…Read More→

I am so glad we’re building new freeways and additional Transbay bridges and BART tunnels … NOT! Yet there is a huge push to build hundreds of thousands of new homes in the Bay Area to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of new tech jobs. In just one submarket, San Francisco’s Central South of Market…Read More→

Does giving tax breaks and / or subsidies to corporations to entice them to relocate to your community work? There has been a number of reports out that basically state, “Financial incentives do not spur economic activity!” Claims are made that construction jobs, local investment in the community, of course, new jobs … While these…Read More→

One of the best components of the workplace to invest in is the lunchroom / breakroom. This is where almost all of the employees go at some point in the day, and making this an energizing and enticing place to visit for all age groups and job functions is key: Mix and match furniture heights…Read More→

  How will autonomous cars affect how your employees commute, what impact on your building’s garage and what other impacts on the way we do business? It is happening faster than you think. “By the end of this year, Waymo plans to launch the world’s first commercial ride-sharing service in the Phoenix metro area using…Read More→

At the recent Commercial Real Estate Allen Matkin’s / UCLA’s forecast, for California and overall, office space has reached the peak for this cycle with office rates as high as they will be for the foreseeable future. Warehouses are hot and for the East Bay, San Joaquin and Sacramento counties will remain sizzling for the…Read More→

I recently saw one of the futures of office space, a Mercedes Benz with four seats facing each other around a small conference table, driverless, of course, so you can have meetings while on the way to more meetings. https://artplusmarketing.com/the-future-of-self-driving-cars-ux-augmented-reality-office-cars-and-more-50a134f152e7

“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→

Not sure if this is a signal of a change in office market conditions or just a coincidence, but recently out here in the burbs of Contra Costa we have had a flurry of office building open houses and promotions. Breakfast open houses, luncheons, and we’ll see how long this trend continues. However, if prospects…Read More→

49% of Baby Boomers are confident they can move up in their housing in the San Francisco Bay Area (I thought these slightly older folks were downsizing?), 38% of Gen Xers had the same confidence, but 74% of Millennials living in the Greater Bay Area are considering moving, but may have to move away from…Read More→

There is an industry organization for co-working operations, professionals, asset owners, service providers and investors called the Global Workspace Association. There are over 14,000 shared workspaces in the world today and for the Unites States there are 20 companies that have five or more locations. Landlords are looking more at various partnerships with the major…Read More→

by Odette Pollar Time Management Systems Question: I am going to start a business from my home, but I am worried about being taken seriously by my customers. Answer: More and more people are working from home and hence it does not carry the same stigma it once did. Before going “official”, particularly in a condominium…Read More→

Home Depot will be taking 50 of its stores and installing 1,000 solar panels on each roof, which is expected to reduce electricity by 30-35%, and six of these will use Tesla Power packs to store and dispatch additional power. (Buildings, October 1, 2017)

A recent quote by Fiona Grandi, National leader of strategic investments with the big CPA firm KPMG caused me to think, how will this impact our future office space demand? “Five years ago the big push was to go paperless. Today the push is to be automated.” When we went paperless we needed a lot…Read More→

Office furniture types and materials are changing as worker flexibility and allowing different employees to work anywhere increases. In the “old” days of private offices and dedicated workstations it was one employee sitting for years in the same chair at the same desk surface. Now workers want (or need) height adjustability, changing stations, laptop docks,…Read More→

“I’d like to spend just a few minutes on an overview of this morning’s topic before introducing our distinguished panelists and getting into the heart of the program. Until recently, it’s been a tenant’s market, and how many of us, before, in a market with 30% vacancy through skillful and astute negotiations were able to…Read More→