San Francisco Office Brokerage Team

Our Approach

We use a proactive marketing approach in identifying and securing new tenants for our clients. That approach includes the following:

1. We invest in our clients’ projects by providing cutting edge specific building branded websites, drone exterior and interior videos, professional photos, and 3D virtual tours to pre-qualify any potential tour candidates and provide maximum marketing exposure for the listing.

2. Leveraging the marketing over multiple platforms such a CoStar, LoopNet, Craigslist, Crexi, Tenx, etc.

3. Unlike other firms and leasing teams, we actively track tenants in market under 10,000 square feet and identify tenants either by preferred industries, similar square footage and/or buildout requirements as our listings in order to reach out to tenants on a direct basis.

4. We engage the brokerage community on a weekly basis with our marketing in the form of broker blasts and direct follow up concerning potential tenants they have in or coming to market.

5. Weekly reporting to our clients tracking both inbound inquiries, tours and direct tenant out-reach.

Kidder Mathews is the largest fully independent commercial real estate firm in the Western U.S., with over 900 real estate professionals and staff in 19 offices in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona. We offer a complete range of brokerage, appraisal, asset services, consulting, and debt & equity finance services for all property types.

James R. Walker is a licensed California real estate broker specializing in tenant and landlord representation on leasing matters with an emphasis on office requirements. With 15+ years of experience in the Bay Area market, James has successfully completed over 600+ leasing transactions. As a landlord representative, James’ focus is on historical low & mid-rise, multi-tenanted office buildings in the San Francisco central business district. He has over 17 years’ experience in representing office with retail component projects ranging from 5,000 – 125,000 square feet.
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Scott is a dedicated commercial real estate agent with 21 years of experience leasing and selling commercial buildings in San Francisco. He has successfully executed 500+ client transactions totaling more than 5,000,000 square feet. Scott is focused on representing small to midsized office and industrial buildings owned by individuals, families, and investment companies. He is a licensed California Real Estate Salesperson, Certified Commercial Investment Member CCIM, and a member of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors SIOR.
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Bruce McLellan has over 40 years of commercial real estate experience in the San Francisco Bay Area, representing building owners. A majority of his work has been in the San Francisco Bay Area with a primary focus on historical low and mid-rise buildings. The scope of his leasing transactions has varied in size from as small as single office (150 sq ft) to over 400,000 SF.
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Kate Schmitz joined Kidder Mathews in January of 2018. Working on the brokerage team, Kate represents a broad spectrum of industries throughout the Bay Area and specializes in industrial, retail, office and medical space.
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San Francisco Office Report Newsletter

Q3 2024 Market Overview

The San Francisco office market recorded its twelfth (12th) consecutive quarter of negative net absorption, in which total negative absorption for the quarter was 105,000 square feet, representing a 74% decrease in negative absorption quarter over quarter. While this number still puts San Francisco in the “red”, it represents the lowest amount of negative absorption over those twelve quarters. In Q1 of this year, negative absorption stood at 900,000 square feet, In Q2, 295,000 square feet. If these trend lines continue, we will see positive absorption numbers as early as Q4 this year. Year-to-date leasing volume (approximately 5.5 million square feet) is the highest since 2019.

Tenants in market (TIM) requirements remained level at 6.5 million square feet, for Q3. This tenant activity is still the highest level since 2021. Citywide vacancy rates increased this quarter, though slightly, and are currently in the 35% to 36% range, while the market-wide availability rate continued to remain flat at 39%. The Kastle “back to work” barometer showed a recent four-week peak usage average of 50.7% Unlike last quarter, these numbers line up with the most recent BART ridership report for September 2024, which was (47%) of pre-Covid traffic in Q3.

Leasing activity for Q3 2024 totaled 1.6 million square feet, slightly up from the 1.55 million square feet leased in Q2. Driven by the continued “right sizing” trend and AI, more than half the deals signed in Q3 were under 10,000 square feet. The San Francisco office market continues to have a large block (spaces 50,000 square feet or larger) vacancy issue. This segment accounts for more than half the total vacancy in the market.
We continue to see a bifurcated market where the vast majority of leases (87%) in Q3 have been in Class A buildings. Additionally, the bulk of leasing activity continues to be in the North & South Financial and Mission Bay/China Basin submarkets. The continued “flight to quality” trend still remains both qualitative and geographical as elevated vacancies in Mid-Market & SOMA continue.

For archived reports, please contact the team.