RE broker @ JLL. I help companies find amazing offices globally. San Francisco citizen. My Twitter is where local tech/RE/politics meet for beers after work.
San Francisco has all the ingredients.
- Talent.
- Capital.
- Culture of creation and risk taking.
- Tons to do.
- Supportive echosystem of innovation.
- Diversity.
- Natural beauty.
All we are missing is a coherent local government. Once we get our shit together, we will
The silent business killer that will sink San Francisco...
Prop C - Gross receipts tax on companies' revenue above $50m.
This is a well intentioned law that was supported by the far left and certain members of the business community like
@Benioff
but it has been a disaster.
Private schools are booming in SF because public schools are failing.
Any parent who has the means and wants their child to be prepared for college/professional career will avoid SFUSD.
SFUSD has been driven into the ground by the extreme left, many who simply use the school
People in San Francisco want to know why Union Square is largely vacant.
Or why all the Walgreens stores, Whole Foods, Target, or all the mom & pop places are closing?
Or why In-N-Out is leaving Oakland.
The answer is Prop 47.
It essentially legalized theft under $950.
Spent last 3 weeks in NYC on a commercial real estate vision quest for my hometown. My conclusion....
San Francisco needs to step up it's real estate development game...... big time.
NYC's developers have transformed ugly and barely used land sites into iconic, architecturally
If San Francisco wants to save downtown, Mid-Market, and Union Square - the solution is simple.
- arrest, charge, prosecute and jail repeat thieves
- arrest, prosecute and deport fentanyl dealers when appropriate
- reasonable taxes that aren’t egregiously higher relative to
Complete domination for
@GrowSF
endorsed candidates and propositions in local SF election!!
Why?
San Franciscans are done with radical progressive ideology, defunding the police, harm reduction, addiction enablement, failing schools, and wasting billions of tax payer $$.
SF
One of the biggest misses in the history of San Francisco....
Not finishing the central subway plan.
Right now it stops in Chinatown. It's awesome and can get you from Chinatown to Chase Center or Oracle park in 10 mins. It's clean. New.
But the whole northern part of the
I love this so much.
I get many don’t like
@elonmusk
but every SF leader should swallow their pride and open their eyes to the opportunity here.
We have the greatest entrepreneur of all time trying to build one of the potentially biggest companies right here in San Francisco.
Many have offered rich incentives for X (fka Twitter) to move its HQ out of San Francisco.
Moreover, the city is in a doom spiral with one company after another left or leaving.
Therefore, they expect X will move too.
We will not.
You only know who your real friends are when
In San Francisco the city charges a tenant between $15-$22 per SqFt to change the "use" of a building.
Even if the "use" is allowed under current zoning.
In other words, if a building is zoned for office, and retail and the current "use" is office but someone wants to do
I was in SOMA today. It seemed cleaner with far less fentanyl addicts.
Very positive. Then I see this video of the Feds arresting fentanyl dealers!!
If we do this everyday for the next year we will be back to 2014 street conditions.
Defund the homeless industrial complex.
"🚨 Major FBI bust at Van Ness & Eddy on Oct 16! 🚔 Such actions are crucial to curb drug sales in the Tenderloin. Let's keep our community safe!
#TenderloinCleanup
#SafetyFirst
"
Original video courtesy of u/localhost415 (thank you!)
BART is broken.
The cars are filled with addicts and many people, particularly women, are afraid to ride. It’s an unfortunate truth.
BART is central to any recovery in San Francisco.
The extremists who run BART don’t care that people hang out and use on the trains and that
Seeing Oakland struggle has really bothered me. I grew up in the 510.
@MayorShengThao
has been an incompetent failure by any measure. If you listen to her speak it’s painfully obvious she’s simply not very smart.
And now, raided by the FBI, she seems to be corrupt.
Is anyone
San Francisco is amazing. Despite some challenges that we will get past it’s truly a special place.
Yesterday my GF and I went for a run along Marina Green and Crissy by GG bridge.
Then we had lunch in Tiburon. Then a drive and mini hike on Mt. Tamalpais peaks overlooking
Oakland is eating itself. Really sad to watch.
I know many friends who live there and all of them are thinking of moving away because of how dangerous it has become.
Most of the good retail is gone or leaving because of rampant crime bringing quality of life down 📉
The
San Francisco’s “housing first” homelessness policy has completely failed based on every metric.
- billions spent w problems getting worse
- death rate as high as 25% in permanent supportive housing
- street conditions declining
- crime up
It’s all about incentives and the
To the activists who make a living managing - but never solving - the homeless crisis, our reforms are a nightmare.
We’ve tied their funding to metrics, putting dollars for ineffective, ideologically-driven groups on the chopping block.
We’ve banned
Every San Francisco resident should read this article about
@AaronPeskin
The guys is a shady hypocrite. This expose explains his and his wife’s mob like corruption to benefit themselves.
Using city planning as a weapon and tool to create wealth is shameful. This should be
San Francisco is beautiful.
Water, hills, islands, bridges, skyscrapers.
I take conference calls while walking on this pier.
The market will bounce back. I am 100% confident.
The haters are getting quieter. Soon you won’t hear them at all.
@JackieFielder_
I think most people love it. It’s a blast!
Most think it’s insulting we spend more on homelessness and have the worst outcomes. Most find it insulting we care about criminals more than law abiding citizens. Most find it offensive that our public schools have been on decline.
I've heard through the grapevine and seen on social media 4 founders who moved to NYC come back to San Francisco recently.
I bet there are many more...
Seems there is a material trend of folks quietly boomeranging back to San Francisco from NYC, Miami, and other markets.
NYC
We are witnessing one of the stupidest business debacles of our age unfold live.
The Oakland A’s leaving the Bay Area, a top ten media market, for Las Vegas the 40th ranked media market.
What further makes this move dumb, they can’t figure out how to build the ballpark on the
BREAKING: The A's have set their sights off the Las Vegadstrip, as it is proving to be logistically too expensive. There is a leaked rendering of a proposed site next to I-95 in Henderson, 1 mile away from the Raiders training facility.
My girlfriend is way smarter than me.
Tonight we were discussing San Francisco relative to other major US cities. She used to live here, moved to NYC, then to LA, and hopefully back here in the fall 😎
She had some really good insights and ideas to change the perception of
I saw the coolest gym I've ever seen today at The Pyramid Building in San Francisco.
It has panoramic water views from the Golden Gate to the Bay Bridge. Sauna/showers with window overlooking Chinatown. Trendy equipment and impeccible minimalist design.
The new owner
Prop C has been an utter disaster.
It drove companies (Stripe for example) out of SF lowering tax base.
Then, the money has been allocated terribly buying apartment units for out of town addicts instead of shelters.
Repeal Prop C. Defund the homeless industrial complex.
MORE MONEY? Most absurd ask in the history of homeless grifting. Prop. C raised over $450 MILLION and Friendenbach designated $400M to “permanent housing” (just $53M to shelters) — and
@christinevans
little lapdog commission approved it. Audit please!
@sfcontroller
@mattdorsey
Mid-Market in
#SanFrancisco
is at a crossroads.
All of the major tenants who moved there when Ed Lee and
@GavinNewsom
instituted tax breaks have left (Square, Uber, Zendesk, Reddit, etc.) and only Twitter is left.
- Whole Foods is closing after 1 year because of theft and lack
People ask "What will it take to transform downtown SF and bring more energy?"
The answer is more PEOPLE.
About 20 of these housing towers (12,000+ units) downtown would be a great start.
More people means better retail, better retail = more fun 🙂
Positive San Francisco News!
I walked through Civic Center today and it has never looked this good in its history IMO.
Immaculate. New grass, spotless, new outdoor amenities and lights. Go APEC!
I was honestly shocked. SF should fight to keep it this way.
Imagine if a few unelected people with no law enforcement experience decided on a bunch of insane rules that prevented the police from protecting your family, your business, and the community.
It's dystopian...... Who are these people?
That's what the San Francisco Police
We are in the 1st inning of the next San Francisco super cycle.
Post 2024 elections, we will see improvements across all city metrics at an accelerating rate.
Long San Francisco ❤️
San Francisco’s population is rising again.
New data shows that San Francisco experienced the highest population growth from net migration among California's 58 counties over the last year.
👍 Prop 47 has been a disaster for cities like San Francisco.
If someone steals FOOD because they’re hungry, sure let’s give them light sentences, slap on wrists, or better yet FOOD!
But habitual thieves who steal other stuff beyond food should be held accountable w jail
BREAKING: Democrat
@AsmVillapudua
announces that he's introducing a referendum on Prop. 47 to revise the $950 threshold between misdemeanor/felony theft, increase judicial discretion give Legislature more power to craft retail theft policy, & support diversion,among other things.
San Francisco should be paying close attention to Detroit.
Why?
Often ridiculed or made fun of, Detroit has ended their real estate doom loop and their downtown is going through a rebirth.
One person, Dan Gilbert the founder of
@RocketMortgage
, has almost single handedly
Positive news in San Francisco! Pass it on...
Crime is down about ~30% across the board in 2024.
Both property crime and violent crime are down significantly.
All neighborhoods except Noe Valley, including where most of the commercial office tenants are (FiDi, SOMA,
A positive step for BART.
Hopefully this will keep criminals and addicts who sleep/use/scream/ litter off the trains so everyday workers can feel safe and clean.
Our tax base is shrinking. Our population is shrinking.
California and cities like San Francisco have massive deficits.
Massive cuts are needed to get onto a path of sustainability.
More taxes will only push more long time residents and companies out of the state which will
My latest column: CA’s budget problem is big — & isn’t going away anytime soon. Thus far, Newsom & lawmakers have mainly relied on accounting gimmicks to postpone the inevitable: cutting spending. But delaying pain for too long will only hurt worse later.
Another massive benefit to these large waterfront developments is the developers use their money to rebuild seawalls and protections from future sea level rise. A huge benefit to local tax payers!
Construction costs in San Francisco and elsewhere will likely never come down unless we experience technological breakthroughs in the space.
Why won’t costs come down?
In San Francisco most new construction of scale requires union labor. Union contracts have built in rate
@sfstandard
74% of the deaths occurred at fixed address.
Meaning those free apartments we give out of town addicts are more like free drug dens that ultimately kill the tenants.
We need tough love and accountability. Mandatory shelter/treatment or jail. If you clean up and choose to
The dark cloud over the San Francisco mayor’s race is ranked choice voting.
It’s how Chesa Boudin won. It’s how Sheng Thao became mayor in Oakland despite having fewer 1st place votes than Loren Taylor.
The fear is that the moderate Dem vote is splintered by Breed / Farrell /
How's the Mayor's race shaping up? It's definitely a mixed bag. Mark Farrell is tied with Daniel Lurie, Safaí is losing ground, and Peskin is unpopular.
While Mayor Breed remains in the top position, every candidate has pretty high unfavorables. Well, except for Steve Kerr...
First step in turning SF around is informing the public about who their supervisors are and what they stand for.
People will soon realize they are the biggest problem SF faces.
The
@GrowSF
team putting in work! Use their tool to look up your SF district supervisor.
Most San Franciscans don't know who their Supervisor is or what they stand for. But now it's super easy to learn: Use the GrowSF Supervisor Map to look up your representative and learn what they've done in office.
Had a great conversation with
@LondonBreed
and she laid out her plan and vision for how to get San Francisco on track.
She talked about:
- shutting down open air drug markets
- making zoning changes to allow developers to build what the market wants easier
- the APEC
My vision for downtown:
- new world-class park at Embarcadero Plaza
- tens of thousands of new housing units + mixed-use "anchor projects" like in Lower Manhattan
- increased public safety
- new incentives to bring employers/workers back
- + more!
TODCO is the embodiment of the corruption, NIMBYism, and incompetence that runs San Francisco. Look them up.
They are an affordable housing non-profit that has blocked LOTS of housing.
They have weaponized their non-profit status, the planning department, permitting, public
This brilliant essay has a brutally accurate evaluation of TODCO, a San Francisco affordable housing nonprofit that receives millions in government funding and tirelessly works to block the construction of any new affordable housing in San Francisco.
I walk by this group of buildings almost every day and shake my head.
Check out California and Drumm in San Francisco.
The heart of the FiDi right next to the cable car starting point, 1 block from Ferry Building. Main & Main.
We have a hodgepodge of ugly, useless low rise
@sydney_ev
@Benioff
The point is when San Francisco has a drastically higher taxes companies will leave and go to cheaper tax cities. If the whole country had Prop C than we would be good but they don’t.
@asanwal
@theSamParr
Red Notice by
@Billbrowder
is a phenomenal story. One weekend in Hawaii reading through the whole thing gets it done and informs your perspective. Do it.
I saw
@agarwal
tweet this so I looked up how many homeless encampment fires there have been in San Francisco recently.
According to the SF Standard in 2023 there were 800 reported homeless encampment fires.
800... "reported". So probably many more in reality.
That number was
I walked by a trash fire in Hayes Valley this morning. An entire condo building had been evacuated, but luckily the fire department was already there putting out the flames.
Note: that’s a preschool directly behind the melted trash cans. This is not ok.
@sfstandard
Love this - every organization should be held accountable for how they use company resources - many of us think the Coalition on Homelessness is perpetuating the problem and hurting our San Francisco.
People are finally waking up to what is happening here.
The worst performing District, that is also the most important to the viability of San Francisco, is District 3.
- Union Square is in complete free fall w almost 75% of retail vacant, available, or could be made available. Tons of homeless.
-Chinatown elders and merchants are
In San Francisco some older buildings with historical characteristics are functionally obsolete and vacant.
They should be reimagined so that elements of their existing state are preserved while being transformed into something useful for modern society.
The current laws and
The value of Market Center has plummeted since it was bought in 2019.
Market Center (555 & 575 Market Street) is the former
@Chevron
world HQ.
Paramount, based in NYC, bought it for ~ $962/SqFt. It's probably worth between $290-$400 now.
Any owner in San Francisco who bought
We need moderate, business friendly leadership in San Francisco and CA so businesses don’t continue to leave.
Obvious to many I know but some people aren’t aware of what happens if we don’t.
We must avoid the fiscal death spiral that many midwestern cities and states have
@yuris
Medium sized towers from 4-10 stories should surround the park. Almost nobody enjoys the views because the houses surrounding the park don’t even clear the trees!!
@LondonBreed
@autodesk
The way to build a stronger more resilient Downtown is obvious.
1) eliminate Prop C
2) more cops
3) reduce/eliminate affordability requirements and transfer taxes on RE development
4) loosen zoning regulations
5) be nice to businesses
6) short stints in jail for public drug
San Francisco and the state of California clearly need to be run more efficiently. Look at BART’s ineffectiveness 👇👇
The waste, inefficiency, and incompetence is astounding.
No wonder we have huge deficits DESPITE being taxed at the highest rate.
Where is our ROI?
SF BART employs 4k people for 48M trips per year, or 12k trips/employee
NYC MTA employs 52.2k people for 1.2B trips per year, or 23k trips/employee
SF BART employs double the employees per trip
What an inspiring space!
A former WW2 power house. The energy produced in this building helped build the Pacific Fleet.
And now it’s hosting some of the world’s brightest minds working through modern day’s biggest technological challenges.
Only in 🇺🇸
We got the YC generative AI companies together in SF for an event hosted by
@sdianahu
. Impossible to be here and not feel like you are seeing the future.
The amount of office demand in San Francisco from early stage startups continues to increase 📈
These teams range from 5-30 in most cases. Given their size, it will take some time for them to make a dent in the historic vacancy rate..... but in a few years they'll absorb
As an office broker I concur. It’s BS.
This is basically IKEA furniture. Requiring a permit to put one in an office is outrageous.
No reason to require phone booths to have sprinklers…… except to enrich those who install sprinklers
@zebulgar
Definition of putting politics/ego/revenge over what’s best for the country in this case of rural broadband internet.
There is no possible argument to the contrary.
“Founders have to be in San Francisco”
Raise Commercial Real Estate has lots of great clients but
@ycombinator
and
@garrytan
are special.
Not only are they at the cutting edge of everything new in technology, they also care deeply about the city of San Francisco and the
San Francisco is much safer when Oakland is doing well.
Lots of the crime San Francisco experiences is spillover from Oakland’s chaos.
Many East Bay residents will tell you it's never been this bad.
If you care about San Francisco and the whole Bay Area you should care about
@realEstateTrent
It is a great time to invest in San Francisco.
Buy RE in true global city, world capital of tech, at a huge discount.
This town has been boom and bust since the gold rush.
Political environment changing for the better, and next wave of global companies being born (AI & Bio)
San Francisco’s Mid-Market will remain dead until significant residential and retail are built.
The HUB was a plan to add ~8k units of housing including lots of affordable units with little to no displacement, all right on top of BART.
It was fought by
@TODCO
&
@DeanPreston
.
@DeanPreston
The data speaks for itself. You are not pro housing. You are for tenants rights and protections will give you that but we need leaders who support both. The crisis won’t end without more new supply and you are the number one hurdle for us to move forward.
This young addict relocated to San Francisco from Boston 4 months ago.
He came here because “San Francisco has everything I need”
The city gives him cash general assistance, there are cheap drugs everywhere, and there is no chance of jail or being hassled by cops.
This is
Please meet 30-year-old Larry from Boston, Massachusetts. He came to San Francisco a few months ago Unhoused. but he’s living in the shelter now he’s getting food, stamps and general assistance from San Francisco. And if you’ve been following me for a while, you know I have did
We spend billions on homelessness with zero ROI and problem is getting worse.
I’d prefer a high quality subway system that is clean and new like you find in Japan.
A week or so ago i had a tweet that went viral about how SFUSD was sadly failing SF kids on almost every possible measurable.
I got some backlash.
Here is a shining example of how ineffective SFUSD leadership is.
$40m wasted.... On a payroll system.... that doesn't work...
Here's a jaw dropping fact about the San Francisco commercial office market.....
Right now, buildings in the downtown core are selling for $200-$300/SqFt which is equal to or less than the cost to build out a space from shell condition.
Interiors costing more to build than the
@Jay_Hansen
Most developers I speak with say labor accounts for roughly 40% of project costs.
Most general contractors I speak with say union is ~20% more expensive than non union
Forgot to mention -
@BART
leadership plans to continue to run deficits with the hope of national and state bailouts. This is ineffective planning.
Any large state/national subsidies should be used to extend the system not simply keep it running
.
@eric_young_1
That is solvable! Just need to remove all of the red tape (temporarily remove or delay affordability requirements, defer taxes, remove union labor requirements, upzone, reduce permit times, eliminate CEQUA challenges, etc.)
@DeanPreston
Anti-capitalist? Blanket statements like this aren’t productive. If a developer can build something that creates net new units, both affordable and market rate......Why disincentivize that? We need net new units fast. Partnership not obstruction is the way forward.
@dmalcolmcarson
Unfortunately that’s not the case. There was strong opposition to extending it.
In fact, the tunnel to North Beach station is already dug but NIMBY’s didn’t want it
Where does the San Francisco office market stand?
From a 10,000 foot vantage point things are scattered but generally trending upward.... slowly. For savvy buyers, workplace leaders, and companies, there is opportunity abound.
The Good:
- Demand up to pre-pandemic 2020 levels
@stuffonfire
@Benioff
@GrowSF
They can't!
SF needs companies' employees here in-person so they spend money here in the community supporting our small businesses (restaurants, bars, barbers, shoe shiners, dry cleaners, construction workers, etc.)
Met
@MarjanPhilhour
at my sister in law’s house in the Richmond District.
She is down to earth, has common sense, has lived on the west side her whole life, and she will help fix San Francisco.
Marjan > Connie Chan
Vote for her in the DCCC election on March 5. It’s crucial.
The developments on the Dumbo waterfront and the Domino Sugar development in Brooklyn are awesome.
They look great, provide new public outdoor space, housing, retail, and office.
San Francisco’s Embarcadero should take notes. We have too many piers that are ugly, falling
@DeanPreston
Democrats are leading these recalls sir. Also, as voters we can use our right to recall as we see fit, and dereliction of duty is 100% appropriate. Democracy will have its day at the ballot box
San Francisco will recover faster and reach greater heights because of
@ycombinator
and
@garrytan
. They believe in S.F.
Grateful that we can help their portfolio companies find great spaces in S.F. and beyond!
Love this!
@ycombinator
's SF migration is the epitome of change happens slowly, then all at once. I remember opening the first SF YC office, a small space in SOMA, back in 2015 as the first client ever for
@raiseyourwork
. Almost 10 years later, working with this team
@snowmaker
Coinbase , who is remote first, is leasing 40,000 SqFt in Silicon Valley.
Lots of remote companies leasing office space...
Cost in $ and man hours, to coordinate bringing remote workers together IRL is high.
Worth noting, Coinbase is another San Francisco born company that
@elonmusk
We will change SF for the better come 2024 elections
Democracy and freedom of speech for the win!
@elonmusk
Thank you for building in San Francisco
The OpenAI HQ deal we worked on received Bay Area Deal Of The Year!!
Thank you to the Workplace & RE team at OpenAI for their trust and partnership. The workplace team there is the best in the world.
Thank you to the
@SFBusinessTimes
for the recognition.
Our team at Raise
A generational real estate opportunity is coming to San Francisco.
Lots of amazing assets will be acquired at historically low prices.
Sure, many buildings are functionally obsolete and will need to be demolished and rebuilt.
Lots of good assets with long term value
Someone wants to use their own $ to turn a small Parking lot near the subway into 57 units, 8 affordable…and we say no?!?!
WTF
This project would create jobs, grow the tax base, and add precious housing. We need new supervisors.
@GrowSF
I don’t think long term prison is the answer for addiction.
BUT, I do think small stints in county/city jail for addicts who are using fentanyl/meth openly on the street is an important part of the solution for San Francisco and other cities.
A person using fentanyl/meth in