If you’re looking to lease office space in San Francisco, you have an excessive quantity of choices at your disposal.
New data from the commercial real estate brokerage CBRE (NYSE:CBRE) determined 31.8% of San Francisco’s office properties were vacant during the second quarter of this year, a new record. The previous record was 29.4% in the year’s first quarter – one year ago, the rate was 27%.
“The biggest factor is people are not coming to the office,” said CBRE Director Colin Yasukochi in an interview with KRON4.com. “People want to come in when their colleagues are there, or what is the point of coming to the office to sit on Zoom meetings all day?”
Yasukochi also acknowledged the deterioration of the city’s quality of life as contributing to empty offices.
“The more recent and systemic problems we are having around homelessness, crime, transportation and safety have been a further inhibiting thing to keep people from the office,” he said. “Buildings with nice views and higher quality amenities are doing better. Some lower-quality buildings are the ones that have the most vacancies,” he said.