San Francisco suffering 'Doom Loop' amid large vacancy rates 

Within the first minute, the free-market solution is already there: buildings with high vacancy rates need to drop their rents.

You cannot and will not ever make me feel bad for multimillionaire landlords who are incapable of adjusting to free-market forces when they're not in the landlords' favor. Small businesses, sure, they don't have the resources to adjust as easily; but anyone who owns a skyscraper can get bent if they think the rest of us normal people are going to give up our time and money just so they can play Wolf of Wall Street with their friends.

My sister in law managed several large apartment complexes in Austin when the market was bad. She re- negotiated leases for lower rent and kept people there.

Having cities whose downtown centers empty out in the evening because everyone works there but no one lives there was never a good idea.

It's amazing how out of touch these people are. They think propping up small businesses and restaurants with tax money is going to somehow solve the rampant drug, homeless, housing, and crime crises they are facing. Tourists don't want to visit cities where they're going to get robbed and spit on, nor do people want to move somewhere where they need to make $200k+ just to have a middle class lifestyle while still being robbed and spit on.

As living near SF, I’m not going to visit as a tourist until there isn’t any poop on the sidewalks.

I lived 30 years in San Francisco and loved it! Then the middle-class got priced out and families had to leave because of high rents and lack of affordable schools, and that means social death. If a city cannot support middle-class workers and families, then it will die.

Maybe people don't want to pay 4000 for a 1bdrm and get attacked by homeless dudes on their way home from work

It's time to reimagine our cities and how they work. I love the idea of turning office space into housing. I'd love to see more retail, restaurants and offices in residential areas. Imagine your commute being a 5 minutes walk, not a two hour drive in heavy traffic.

Having this discussion without talking about the huge homeless, drug, and crime problems is ridiculous. I lived in SF for 9 years. Covid isn't what caused this, it just gave a bunch of people a reason to get out of a city that's grown more filthy, more expensive, and more dangerous.

This isn't just happening here.. over here and Utah there are tons of vacant business buildings because they are asking way too much for them so they said open for years rather than let a small business like mine be able to afford to set up shop they would rather just wait years for someone to come up with enough money to rent their little crappy spot

What's so hard to understand that raising rents beyond what people can afford means a bunch of empty apartments? If people can't afford to live in your housing, how do you win? I would rather have a lower amount but people able to pay me than a ridiculous amount and no money coming in at all. 😢

They forgot to mention that most office jobs can be done remotley at home which can save tremendous amounts of money, time, and stress.

The problem with San Francisco, and to the US as well to an ongoing albeit lesser extent, is that people got really greedy, started charging huge prices for the most common things, made people really bitter about it, and now everyone is just fed up.

You reap what you sow. SF landlords are legendary for being evil. This serves them right. The income generated doesn't match the cost of living. It is un-sustainable.

They are not even talking about the crime that is driving out businesses

I think what everyone can agree on is that any problem SF has was basically caused by landlords increasing, increasing, and increasing rent. You can say it's what the market was pushing for at the time but now what? The landlords and property management companies that pushed it to the literal limit destroyed the city. Every other landlord in the country saw that they could raise their prices faster just like SF and they're doing it. It's only a matter of time before more cities simply die like this because nobody wants to or can live in them.

Residential rents in San Francisco are still too high. A 1 bedroom goes for around $3,000 - $4,000 per month. If the bay area wants to attract businesses, reduce residential rents $700 - $950 per month.

Ohhh yes. The reason SF downtown is crumbling is because there aren't enough artists...lets get them in and not address the high cost of living or crime 🙄

I can't understand landlords that during a pandemic still wanted 100% of their rent. When businesses are forced to close so you as a landlord should also carry their portion.

I lived in SF for 20 years and was finally driven out partly because rent became unreasonable, but mostly because the culture of the city was washed away by a huge move-in of google/twitter tenants into homes emptied by evictions due to the Ellis Act or into the huge condo complexes that sprang up everywhere suddenly for the same reason. The face of SF changed so fast. I'd be more sad for having left if I felt like the city I loved was still there, but it's really not. The heart went out of the city. That's why it's doomed.

The city needs a facelift. They need to reduce rent and housing prices drastically to attract people back. Paying more than premium prices in SF just to be surrounded by crime and vagrancy makes as much sense as a boat in a desert.

No company is going to come into a place where their stores are going to be robbed by nearly everyone walking past the front doors. You might as well just turn them all residental. What can a small business pay, based on what they make, when they are losing money due the thefts?

The fact that landlords gave him this do-over and charge him based off sales means their desperate too. And its good on a sense for him. Because they could either evict him and have nobody or atleast have something come in. Im happy to hear a landlord finally compromise

I will never go back into an office. It’s soul crushing and ONLY benefits the employer.

I used to get my haircut at ProStyle in 2015 and the barber (bigger burly guy) would talk about how all the google/fb/twitter mania would fade away. The cab/uber drivers would talk about it too. Sad it really happened and the city is what it is. There's areas of SF that not many people enjoy being in. That mall was one of them. Tenderloin. Hunters Point. Problem is it's spreading to neighborhoods. Sad fact: homeless people don't walk up hills so the hilly neighborhoods are better.

I bet the locals are happy to have their city back even though it's a cesspool now. I worked in SF before the pandemic and often heard the locals shout things like "techies go home, you're ruining our city". Also, the contrast of people sleeping in tents and defecating on the sidewalk next to billion dollar businesses, million dollar houses, and 6 figure cars highlighted how broken and sick our society is, as you're expected to ignore all the suffering and craziness around you.

I love how the plan is to "give" away space, rent free, to artists, in order to attract workers downtown. But then, after the workers start coming back, and the landlords are actually making more money, who do you think the landlords are going to kick out first, to make even MORE money. The very people who made the downtown livable in the first place. The ARTISTS! And the cycle repeats itself.

There should never be vacancy in CRE. The rent should be lowered until someone can afford it.

Until theft is no longer decriminalized in San Francisco, I can't see things getting much better. Who wants to live and work in a city when it means putting your life and property in real danger?

This is not just a consequence of the epidemic: it's been coming for a long time. I lived and worked there for 34 years, most of that time in the tech industry. The Bay Area is simply a victim of its own success, something that always happens to any city that goes through a long term boom. The choking smoke from wildfires and orange skies at noon, the hotter summers, the changes in employment patterns due to the epidemic, the economic uncertainty, these are all just triggering events, accelerating something that had already begun. I wish it wasn't so. For the first 25 years or so I loved living there, and until the last 4 years I didn't envision ever living anywhere else. But if you cared to look, you could see this coming a long time ago. First a city becomes a great place to live, but not yet expensive - and therefore a great place to do business, because you can attract the staff you need. The city quickly becomes a big success, so more and more people and businesses locate there, which keeps the boom going. It becomes the most exciting place to be. Everyone wants to be there. And then, sooner or later, overcrowding, rising rents, rising cost of living, dirty streets, rising crime, over-strained infrastructure and an all-about-money culture halt the boom and reverse it. But the boom isn't just killed off by those problems, the boom is also what causes them. The city governments struggle to hang on to their staff to keep their cities running and in repair, because they have to keep paying them ever higher salaries so they can even afford to live there. Growth and more growth, and the needs of business, become the priorities over all else. They have to keep tax revenue rising just so they can keep their heads above water. And the growth and rising salaries in turn keeps the cost of living going up: a vicious circle they can't escape, a struggle they inevitably start to lose. The quality of life in the city begins to deteriorate. Increasingly, the people the businesses need to thrive don't want to relocate there anymore, and people already there start looking to get out, because it's gotten too expensive and no longer a pleasant place to live. The businesses find it's no longer a good place to do business, because they have to pay too much so their employees can even afford to live there, if they can find a place to live at all. They start finding it harder and harder to attract the best talent, or even maintain adequate staffing levels. The cost of office space and construction costs have also gone through the roof. Entrepreneurs look somewhere else for an affordable location to launch their startups, and established companies start relocating elsewhere to lower their costs. Investors of all kinds start looking elsewhere to invest. The local economy declines, and the golden age is over. The boom inevitably kills off the very things about the place that made it successful. And then the party moves somewhere else. The Bay Area is no different in that regard than any other place. It's not somehow immune to those forces. To quote the words of one Californian, "Call someplace Paradise, kiss it goodbye...".

There was a reason half the country didn't want to lockdown, they knew this would be the outcome if the economy came to a halt. And here we are

Work from home when possible. You save on Gas, lunch, car insurance, avoid car accidents. You also gain at least 2 hours a day of your sanity back from the commute. That's 10 hours a week you can put toward extra sleep, time spent with family and friends.

Why anyone would willingly choose to live in this disaster of a city is beyond me

No one wants to live in SF let alone work in SF. Fix the crime!

San Francisco is a beautiful city. Super sad seeing what’s going on in this city. It’s doomed

From working in real estate on the East coast to moving to SOCAL. I have yet to understand the concept of these owners that would rather keep a vacant apartment at an unaffordable price than lower the rent and get a resident to occupy it. The properties aren’t even worth what they’re asking, they’re asking these prices because everyone else does.

Myself and my family stopped over at SF for a few nights when doing a California road trip from the UK. On the first night getting pizza, a drug fuelled man came into the take out screaming, swearing and demanding money because we were all “Rich sons of b*****s”. The next morning, whilst enjoying a morning coffee in Union square, we were serenaded by a fully naked female kick boxing and shadow fighting. The high scissor kicks were a delight to be seen by my children. Luckily, as teenagers, they are quite calm and open minded and my sons only comment was “ NOT WHAT YOU NEED TO SEE WITH YOUR MORNING CAPPUCCINO “😂 Whilst we laugh about it now, it is sad to see what has happened to SF, this was my 4th visit to the once great city since 2003. I fully blame City Hall and the Politicians. You have ruined that City, plain and simple.

Bro said this city is about to go into another 10 year decline before people wanna move back and visit and work there. Sad thing is that’s optimistic

Unfortunately this is happening in a lot of places. Landlords think they will get rich by raising the rent. But, in reality, high cost of living drives people away.

It’s crazy how for decades, art programs have been cut in schools and art majors have been frowned upon, but now they see how important artists are and want to use them to rebuild San Francisco.

01:05 yall really gonna try to cut propaganda about working from home being bad, oooooh noooo corporate offices have to pay for the building being there while they have work from home. Miss me with that. Those buildings can be easily just made into affordable housing structures.

The implementation of remote work is a giant win for the middle class. It's a win for mental health, single parents, and the environment. It doesn't impact quality of work and companies can save a huge chunk of money by not having to rent office space. Unfortunately it took a pandemic to remind landlords and city officials that a city is unsustainable without its middle class, which they alienated. Everyone can go almost anywhere else in the world for a better quality of life at half the cost. There is absolutely no good reason for anyone to live here, to invest here, to visit here. SF deserves to rot.

Crime is the bigger issue. It’s why all the retail stores are leaving.

San Francisco leadership should start *every* interview with an apology while holding up a photograph of a homeless person defecating in a playground.

they didn’t once mention crime, theft, open-air drug markets, or the failed policies that perpetuated these things.

I lived in SF during the 80's-90's. It was a great place because there were forward-thinking people who were willing to solve some of the city's big issues, on top of also dealing with the AIDS epidemic. The moment the tech bros showed up and rents skyrocketed, many of those folks had to move across the Bay or elsewhere, leaving a solution vacuum. Meanwhile, the tech bros were far less concerned about the growing social problems like homelessness and drug addiction and basically just needed them to go away which obviously didn't happen. The only way SF can rescue itself from the slump is to bring back the brain trust who had workable solutions and make the city (somewhat) affordable again. They need to reinvest in their public transportation as well. I'm rooting for the city.

The fact that there's millions of square feet of vacant property in San Francisco while there's simultaneously an insanely overpriced residential rental market and massive homelessness is hard to cogitate.

Maybe some of the classes of people who made San Francisco famous; the writers and artists can return. Maybe San Francisco can turn away from being an enclave for the wealthy and embrace once more the working class who used to be the foundation of this grand metropolis.

3:05: “Sorry my dude, I have to cut your hair and do PR at the same time to survive…”

And pretty soon. The Golden Gate bridge will be a piece of rush because of lack of maintenance. The rust is already set in

I reside in close proximity to Los Angeles, and the situation here mirrors what many are experiencing. The desire to return to office spaces in Culver City, Santa Monica, and Hollywood is virtually nonexistent. It appears that cities lack a forward-thinking approach; they permit a saturation of companies in a given area, causing a rapid surge in rental prices. Only those in the C-suite can comfortably afford to live near these offices, while everyone else faces lengthy commutes. This situation is quite absurd. There is a clear consensus that most individuals prefer to continue working from home. If companies fail to provide salaries that enable employees to reside near their offices, they are essentially shifting the financial burden onto their workers. It is a matter of concern that remote work opportunities have not been codified into law yet. This legislation should allow people to live in areas they can afford without wasting precious time and money on commuting for jobs that can easily be performed remotely. For those who genuinely require a collaborative workspace, tax deductions for expenses such as gas, vehicle insurance, and a percentage of vehicle costs should be made available.

People don't like commuting 1-3 hours for work. If San Francisco can address that and people can travel 30 minutes to work, then it can compete with work from home.

No mention of rampant crime and open drug use? What business will stay open downtown when they get their goods stolen and their customers get mugged?

I visited SF back in the late 90's/early 2000's. Such an amazing, vibrant city. The park by the bay was literally filled with people running, playing, lounging...I never saw so much going on in such a small area. And later, we visited the asian district. We saw people inside this outdoor strip mall of sorts doing what looked like tai-chi. The stores has imported stuff straight from Japan. And for the life of me, I don't remember seeing one homeless tent anywhere (maybe they were hidden somewhere?). It was such an interesting city that I don't recognize anymore. I have no desire to ever visit it again.

2:22 That will never happen. As more and more people are working from home. Its better to just convert those buildings into apartments. Over 80% of jobs can be done from home. People will be much happier, and companies in return will see a skyrocket in job performance and results. Not to mention that soon working days will be 4 days instead of 5 days. Which will make people overwhelmingly happier.

They never define “doom loop.”

SF is a victim of its own success. I feel bad for the small businesses located there, but the city needs to diversify its economy to keep itself afloat

What about the crime?

Who wouldn’t want to pay $2.1m for an 800sq ft efficiency???? So… when does the “trickle-down effect” start? … Americans have been waiting since 1984.

My company, family, and friends will no longer go to SF because it is way too dangerous. Tourists cannot even rent a car, because it will absolutely, positively be broken into. The DA refuses to keep dangerous offenders off the streets.

Its not even over yet, they're talking like they solved the homeless and crime issues causing a lot of this.

The commercial vacancy rate is well above 31%. Repeat, well above 31%. Just because an office space has a lease doesn’t mean it’s occupied. Salesforce still holds a lease on a lot office space in San Francisco but in most cases they’ve already moved out. They’re empty. And when the lease runs out San Francisco won’t even have that.

I live here in California, I wouldn’t take my kids there. Can’t imagine the people paying such high price for their living space. Which is being surrounded by unsafe environment and people.

I live in a city that has a 33% vacancy rate in its downtown core, it has been that way since 2105-2016 when the oil price collapsed and there are no signs of it bouncing back. As with SF the homeless problem has escalated making the core even less attractive to tenants. This is a a problem that needs to be addressed on multiple fronts as there is no single solution.

I dgaf about commercial vacancies. Convert the empty office spaces into living spaces, grocery stores, clinics, etc and turn that downtown into a community of people instead of companies

I find it funny that artists are included in the list of things that can bring people back into the city when the past year has proven that people don't care about us or think we make enough to even afford anything let alone live in SF

I love the idea of converting office space into housing. They need to do this in Toronto. There's a huge demand for affordable rentals, but the supply is so low. Yet, so many office towers sit vacant since nobody wants to return to the office post pandemic.

Anyone who thinks that a bunch of down market art galleries will bring back tourists really should quit smoking the cheap stuff.

Not one mention of the very high crime rates and brief mention of the thousands of homeless. Massive open air drug markets. Also failed to mention the oppressive regulations in the city that make it hard for people to open businesses. Other than that, hit some key items in the story.

Do you actually need to work when you can take everything you need without paying?

That's all roots back to 1998 when feds dropped interest rate and homes prices skyrocketed, corrupting on its way the whole economy. ☹

San Francisco is facing a commercial vacancy rate of over 31%, the highest in the US. With fears that the city's downtown may be killed off, landlords are said to be preparing to give away retail space to start the clock on what experts say will take 10 years to make downtown bustling enough to attract employers again. Wade Rose, who runs a group that represents some of the biggest tenants including Google, Uber, and Gap, said that landlords went into denial at the 90% collapse in office utilization when the pandemic arrived, which is unprecedented in a major urban city in America. San Francisco has a history of rebirth and City leaders are now offering small loans to small business owners and small payments to landlords to create pop-up restaurants and art galleries downtown. They are also offering retail space to nonprofits, artist groups, and entities that will come in and create interesting activities that will attract people. However, the city is currently experiencing a huge split between the top and bottom of the place, with some of the richest people in the world holding on to the real estate in this place, while more than 7,000 people are living unhoused around San Francisco.

This all points to corporate greed and cutting out the middle class.

Thank goodness some owners are willing to work with businesses because WOW-the current trend of gross over-valuing of real estate is destroying the country. 😢

Why would anyone want to open a store when it will get robbed with no consequence? When patrons can't park on the street without their windows being smashed in? When homeless people line the sidewalks and the whole city is like zombie town. I don't blame businesses for leaving.

2. Also, crime needs to be dealt with. CA needs to do away with the semi-recent law that limits retailers' ability to punish thieves. If someone steals less than a certain (pretty high) amount, the store can not prosecute them. This has been causing a mass exodus of Walmart's, etc. who are losing money.

Crazy how safety was not brought up. Homelesss, rampant stealing and drug use in the streets is the reason many are leaving

They need to get rid of all the corrupt real estate owners

I was in San Francisco yesterday, and I walked about 3 blocks and counted 10 different location available for lease. Much different than 3 years ago or even 1 year ago.

Parts of NC is getting unreasonably high due to hi tech industries moving in particularly around Charlotte and Raleigh and NY and CA people keep moving here driving up the cost of living; you cannot find a decent rental under 1,000 or a decent home to buy under 200. And for those saying that’s cheap must be from one of the two aforementioned locations

I would love to see downtown SF bustling and I think it will happen. It has to be other than luring workers back in. There is a big reason people want to work remotely!! It's better for the environment!! It's much less stressful than those, yes, 1.5 hours commuting each day. And yes, it's not having to deal with unfriendly, competitive co-workers in your surroundings, all day, every day, for five days a week!! People do not want that anymore. And now, after the pandemic, we have more choices. This has been on my mind for a long time. You're not going to have workers wanting to go back to the office five days a week, full time anymore. I sure don't. But I do want to be engaged and have a hybrid workspace and really feel like I'm a vital team member of the organization I work for. We will come up with a solution. I trust San Francisco as being the innovator it always has been, that it will rise above!

The elite techies destroyed the city and the Bay!!!

Covid may have kicked this off but this has been a long time coming. When I left San Francisco in 2019 the city was falling apart and it wasn’t because they were loosing office jobs. The problem now is the same it was then. Lack of affordable housing.

Greed is what has destroyed San Francisco

Nice. Maybe house pricing will go down.

In 2014, we FLED (to Oregon) from our modest but very nice rented condo-loft in EMERYVILLE (across the Bay from downtown). Our rent there went from about $1,400 a month to now something like $4,200 a month (INSANE). And THAT reflected the Bay Area's greed-drunk landlords gleefully "charging what the market could bear" . . . that market being driven by the invasion of ridiculously overpaid tech company Nouveau Rich "babies" who threw their money around to flaunt their "superiority." (Such fools always conflate luck with personal merit). Thus do the Bay Area's LANDLORDS bear much of the blame for this, that "times" several generations of political "leaders" who have been the total whores of mega developers. "Big Gambler Money" grade: A+ ; vision, ethics, justice or intelligence: D- . 'Without vision, a people perish." Meanwhile, WE have never looked back.

just spent the day in SF on Wed. caught a giants game, walked around north beach, and rode BART. There were people, tourist, and plenty to do.

Maybe they should lower the RENT in the city!!!

You can't bring business and tourists back to a place where it's not safe Crime and drug use , homelessness nobody wants to be in the element

The video title should be... WE VOTED FOR THIS 🎉

Wow, they track that dudes earnings and charge him a percentage? This level of control is truly authoritarian. I would never want a landlord having anything to do with my personal finances. This was not caused by covid. Covid allowed these politicians to excuse homelessness and drug use. It happened to San Diego too. Unmanaged cities charging $3-4000 rent for one bedroom apartments that are horrible. On top of that, vehicle registration and smog laws cripple these small business workers. “Your vehicle didn’t pass smog? Just take it over to the shop and pay $4,000 to hunt down the issue. It’s no big deal, it’s just a couple grand. Failed again? Guess you’re gonna have to ride the trolley or public transit, which is TOTALLY safe. We don’t ride it ever, but you should!”

The reason most at home employees don’t want to come back is the commute, not because of San Francisco. I think if there was a way to make live and work in downtown, a lot would return because they like what SF can offer.

Recall London Greed & majority of Board of Supervisors

Can't feel bad for anything that happens in Cali. State so arrogant that they killing themselves off.

San Francisco biggest issues bagged a few decades back when the Yech Gold rush transformed the city into a city centered around tech wealth with an extreme "Have / have not dynamic ...where there were long time residents and communities were displaced and the city was pretty much devoid of middle-class . But it's still a great city to visit and live ( I'm there a few times a year on vacation ) depending on ones disposition. And the city has too many natural strengths location , natural beauty , creative, vibrant culture spirit etc ) not to make an even greater comeback

I remember this ski town had a similar thing happen.. it got so expensive due to all the rich buying up expensive vacation homes and making fancy ski resorts.. that all the native and normal people who actually lived year round there.. could not afford to stay in their own hometown.. They could commute into the town when they worked for the rich.. but during the summer, the place became a ghost town.. 👻 because the landlords don't really live there.. If you do the same, then this city will quickly empty and stay abandoned Those converted apartments will be labeled as luxury, and no one will buy but people who don't live there.. Also trying to bring back the artists is such a punch in the gut when they had constantly been trying to get rid of them for these big tech groups 🙄 It's ironic Unless their just gonna make up museums from some other rich persons art collection.. And make it another empty room that will still sit empty except for a few tourists

No mention of their response to Covid , Crime or Homelessness , very interesting considering that's the reason for their problems .

I saw a video about New York real estate and, apparently, it is not so simple as to reduce rent on your tenants to meet actual demand. The building itself is collateral for the loan. If suddenly the building becomes worth a whole lot less money, the bank will want the landlord to put up cash or another major asset to maintain that loan, which is often heavily leveraged. It is a Catch 22 where the landlord needs to lower rent to get income, but doesn't have the assets to satisfy the bank.

You conveniently forgot to mention the crime problem. If they don't get hold of that problem, good luck in getting people to come back!