Josh Harkinson’s Post

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Executive Vice President, Harkinson Investment Corporation

I enjoyed attending today's Future of Bay Area Office conference put on by Bisnow. Here are 10 takeaways regarding the nation's most depressed major office market: 1) San Francisco had 6.7 million square feet of negative absorption in office space last year. 2) Financial District high rises are trading at an 80% discount to their pre-Covid prices. 3) Cash is king. Financing is nearly impossible to obtain for these acquisitions. 4) A typical offering gets 50 tours, 15 LOIs, and maybe 3 finalists 5) Flight to quality is an understatement. It's now "flight to experience," meaning tenants want something akin to Disney World in order to convince workers to come back to the office. 6) In order to attract tenants, you have to spend a fortune on TI. Something on the order of $200-$250/SF. 7) While property values have fallen, the price of (unionized) construction labor has not. This is a major hurdle for making deals pencil out. 8) AI tenants now make up 20% of new office demand and they grew 40% as a category last year. 9) High rises are getting more attention than smaller buildings due to the economies of scale associated with renovations. 10) Recovery of the market will take between 5 and 40 years, depending upon whom you ask. In summary: There could be a lot of opportunity here but this is not a market for those who want quick returns.

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