In an article written by Joe Gose and published in the New York Times 4/14/25, sales of office buildings across the country are up 21% from 2023. CBRE reported that in 2024, 6.5 million ore square feet of office space was leased than was vacated. In major higher-cost cities the average asking rate of…Read More→

As various building systems get more and more connected for office building operations there are increased risks of getting hacked, held for ransome or having systems disabled for various nepharious reasons. Buildings Magazone First Quarter 2025 had an aecellent article on how to reduce these risks. Here are the five steps to consider: Collaberate with…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→

Bisnow August 29, 2024, reported that 1 in 6 .S. office buildings are strong residential conversion candidates. On the one hand, it could be viewed as only 1 in 6, while a more optimistic slant would be 17% of U.S. office buildings may be residential conversion candidates.” Manhattan led U.S. markets with more than 53%…Read More→

There have been a number of estimates of the job displacement, current and future, due to AI (Artificial Intelligence) and yes, there will be some offset due to new job opportunities in Ai. “300 million jobs could be lost to AI…44% of companies using or planning on using AI believe it will result in layoffs…Read More→

Recently I wanted to find out first-hand what tenants were doing with and in their office space, so I picked up a clipboard and personally visited a number of office tenants in suburban Class A office buildings. One complex had a huge, 80% empty, parking lot, Class A, and well maintained. I went door-to-door, not…Read More→

Google just renewed its lease at 215 Fremont Street in downtown San Franciso, downsizing from 140,000 sf to 64,000 sf. It could have been worse, they could have vacated entirely!  In the same Bisnow release, The Royal Bank of Canada appears to be taking back 82 San Francisco apartment buildings owned by Goldman Sachs and…Read More→

  ”Artificial intelligence is expected to replace 85 million jobs by 2025, according to a report from the World Economic Forum. That has implications for real estate, CBRE Investment Management Chief Investment Officer for Americas Direct Real Estate Strategies Julie Ingersoll said. “If we lose 25% of our jobs in the United States — think coding jobs, secretarial, even sales-related…Read More→

Christopher Aquilina, SIOR with tenant rep firm Spring 4 n the United Kingdom, , said “Tenants are increasingly understanding that if they want to woo their staff back from WFH (work from home), they need to offer best-in-class office space in a convenient location.” He goes on to say  “Developers need to be part of…Read More→

  HubbleHQ has more than 1,000 offices in 250 buildings in London where companies can just pay and use the office space two or three days a week if their employees aren’t coming in more than that.  There are lockers for the employees to secure their belongings on the days they aren’t there,  and even…Read More→

  This was the headline of a November 14, 2023, BisNow report. “Revenue at companies with flexible work-from-home policies grew four times faster than those with in-person requirements,  according to a new study by Scoop Technologies and Boston Consulting Group.”

Office workers mandated to return to the office, at least a few times a month, are finding a productive way to work the system to get noticed, socialize, meet with their colleagues, and not face horrendous commutes. They work from home in the morning, then zip in when the commute traffic has died down, spend…Read More→

The SF Business Times  Oct. 2, 203 reported on a recent survey of 2,000 full0time employees by Owl Labs, The Hybrid Work Survey, which found “…69% of employees believe their company is requiring in-office work due simply to traditional work expectations. That disconnect is one of many factors that have limited enthusiasm for returning to…Read More→

Major brokerage companies report San Francisco office vacancy now almost 34%. And including s[ace for space that isn’t vacant over 37%. AI is the big new wonder leasing office space in the City, but for every new AI lease another existing tenant is downsizing. As of this week  national office occupancy is up just a…Read More→

  The Bay Area News Group reported that 26% of residents work remotely, down from 36% in 2021. However, ‘despite the drop-off, there were still more than four times as many people working from home in 2022 as in ears leading up the pandemic, when just 6% of workers were mostly remote.’ Public transit ridership…Read More→

According to the SF Business Times, ’San Francisco Sees Significant Jump in Return-To-Office Study’, with a 38% year-over-year increase in visits to office buildings in San Francisco. San Francisco foot traffic downtown remains down 56% from 2019. Ok, that was the good news.  On August 13, 2023   the U. S. Department of Health and Human…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→

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→

  SFGATE had an interesting comparison of the retail activity in Downtown Oakland as compared with Downtown San Francisco. Oakland wins hands-down with packed restaurants, crowds of people heading to clubs and concert venues, versus San Francisco’s downtown which is a ghost town. Oakland’s unemployment rate is 3.4%  at the end of 2022, ‘down from…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→

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→

Bisnow Dec. 16, 2022 “Hybrid work plans are starting to become set in stone across more of corporate America, and as more companies finalize their policies, how much office space they are going to cut from their footprints is becoming clearer. More than 71% of corporate real estate professionals say they expect hybrid work to result in…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→

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→

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→

Reported in the San Francisco Business Times 9/29/22,  the CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Jamie Dimon suggested that those who come to the office every day will be getting the better assignments versus those who work remotely or only come in occasionally. But, “The Survey job site Monster found most workers would quit their…Read More→

San Francisco office vacancy, according to a number of reports, is in the22% range, but when you include occupied space that is available this figure increases to almost 30%. With two million square feet of office sublease space in leases that expire by the end of 2023, this space may go back to the landlords….Read More→

Editor: Jeffrey S. Weil, MCR.h, CCIM, SIOR Executive Vice President 1850 Mt. Diablo Blvd. Suite 200 Walnut Creek, CA 94596 Phone: +1 925 279 5590 Fax: +1 925 279 0450 Email: jeff.weil@colliers.com Blog: www.OfficeTimes.com   October 1, 2022 Issue: 254   If you know someone who would like to receive this newsletter, please send their…Read More→

In an article by Sougata Mukherjeee, Editor-in-Chief of the Triangle Business Journal in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, he wirtes that GICPte  and Workspace Property Trust just spent $1.1 billion on purchasing 53 suburban office buildings  “That’s a bet that reflects institutional investors believe remote work is here to stay, and now office buildings near residential neighborhoods…Read More→

BizNews 9/6/22 had a great quote that to me sums up the dilemma many corporate executives are now facing. “What is the purpose of an office?” said Matthew Saxon, Zoom’s chief people officer. “It’ll be different for different companies, but one of the things I think this huge experience we’ve all been a part of…Read More→

vv This story encapsulates what is going on these days in the ‘back to the office’ vs hybrid vs remote work discussions on-going in today’s Corporate America.  In Bisnow August 19, 2022, Centene, a large healthcare company in North Carolina, was weeks away from completing it’s 800,000 square foot headquarters facility in Charlotte and stated…Read More→

  A recent Colliers Workplace Advisory survey of over 200 major corporate office occupiers found that 69% have set a number of days to be in the office, with the majority requiring three or more days in the office. Trip.com, with 35,000 employees, did a study on hybrid vs full-time office work and found that…Read More→

  San Francisco’s office vacancy rate went from4% in early 2020 to 24% in April 2022, with leasing coming almost to a standstill combines with a number of companies giving back space. Not surprisingly, this has placed millions of feet of planned office projects on hold. Right now there are about 17 million feet of…Read More→

There are a number of costs in office leases and the office leasing industry that many might not be aware of.  Most full-service office leases, where the rental rate includes property taxes, property insurance, utilities, sewer, water, garbage, janitorial and building maintenance have an annual adjustment where the prorate increases over the base year are…Read More→

Where is the office market headed, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area? Yahoo just put i’s entire new 657,934 sf San Jose office campus on the sublease market. PayPal just announced it was vacating Downtown San Francisco, as have a number of other high-profile corporations. Is this due in part to the onerous San…Read More→

“To attract workers back to the office, companies are leaning on the presence of tricked-out offices with leisure areas, modern technology, fitness areas, outdoor spaces and other amenities. Nationally, large companies are hosting parties, pop-up events, free food and even celebrities to paint the workplace as more appealing than home, according to the New York…Read More→

Austin is leading the pack, with 53% of its workers back in the office. Los Angeles checks in at 40% and New York at 36%, but San Francisco is still at the bottom with only 31% of workers coming back to the office. This is having a negative impact on the City of San Francisco’s…Read More→

Yesterday I attended a commercial real estate major investor and developer panel put on by my Northern California SIOR chapter at San Francisco’s Ferry Building  Overall everyone was very optimistic about 2022 and 2023. Paul Single with City National Bank told us our economy was unbelievably strong and interest rates were already up 175 basis…Read More→

On March 21, 2022 Bisnow published report that “Half of all companies plan to require full-time in-person work within a year.  There seems to be a major disconnect between what employees want and what employers want…perhaps there will be two types of companies with two types of workers, those that require workers to be in…Read More→

  This has huge implications not just as a major office deal, but one that was signed while we are still struggling to get workers back into the office. Additionally this is a major signal to the world that despite high income taxes, high energy costs, high housing costs, a homeless problem the San Francisco…Read More→

Around the United States office occupancy levels are in the 40-60% range, but out in San Francisco it is in the 22-35% arena. San Francisco leaders are attempting to jump-start the return to the office, which has impacted the many restaurants and retailers who miss the foot traffic as well as major employers paying for…Read More→

Bisnow Jan. 23, 2022 reported national office occupancy rates, which had risen to 39% in November, 2022, is slowly back on the rise and now averages 36%.  However, the demand for office space has stalled and is at 58% of pre-pandemic levels. It had hit 87% in August 2021 when we thought we were out…Read More→