Return-Path: Delivered-To: andrew@sterlingcal.com Received: from reseller401.webserversystems.com by reseller401.webserversystems.com with LMTP id 8OyzGctT12aXbwYAchKAPA (envelope-from ) for ; Tue, 03 Sep 2024 13:22:03 -0500 Return-path: Envelope-to: andrew@sterlingcal.com Delivery-date: Tue, 03 Sep 2024 13:22:03 -0500 Received: from o13.ptr1224.officeinteractive.com ([168.245.9.66]:44912) by reseller401.webserversystems.com with esmtps (TLS1.2) tls TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 (Exim 4.96.2) (envelope-from ) id 1slYAE-001m8I-15 for andrew@sterlingcal.com; Tue, 03 Sep 2024 13:22:03 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=jefftaborgroup.com; h=content-type:from:mime-version:subject:to:cc:content-type:from: subject:to; s=s1; bh=Bi61p39gcNtTvmh2CdLYWEMJMjmdSWXGyTn+t9g+ang=; b=Z0xAvnCAHYbbLU9GB1lVrpaKtv36kF952bBNUTZGmXWfjQO+rDxEmpzhfluyh3IioM8r VzSSwhGx7AtJXa2v4UcJyrt/t6Lsy4RyxKrMHcZx4lbOEITQXLhNPhTsJtl0ZnwQ3/V2he +b/r2vOkrtq8qbmeNa9oK0jEJ2IFHs3w192MEDeruoQ1wUfsJSCltOXY9zbY0252iu+Jz+ fbHHL3SbixkCgbMv+oIljQ0zMsfGLjxKnsEzuU7ku+TDmgX2D8o4KnfoToYL7tms50HPxH ZFNia4mSnoNBqIlSEn+vJ2s7XWkJd28xwHZyvG99E1ipD1UyBoE+Bd4OhdQ+Dwlw== Received: by recvd-764b8dc56-hwmvg with SMTP id recvd-764b8dc56-hwmvg-1-66D753BE-20 2024-09-03 18:21:50.888501732 +0000 UTC m=+1108744.138521571 Received: from MjEzMTA1MDQ (unknown) by geopod-ismtpd-1 (SG) with HTTP id EH7UufTlRgGCDQscfTft7Q for ; Tue, 03 Sep 2024 18:21:50.851 +0000 (UTC) Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=5bc2ee68e3a7104570fe81c74a8aea1012388685e6157a7ec627790e16cf Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2024 18:21:51 +0000 (UTC) From: Jeff Tabor Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: As good as it gets Message-ID: X-SG-EID: =?us-ascii?Q?u001=2E6XgS+aMGExnB1bqZZrdrz9qzQEbZ7BEjpKh5guDijZ5HYu1dYAKq1tDEG?= =?us-ascii?Q?Tygo2l3bpRSrRRtQO=2FYwkK2RsxQ5I3Zloq1d6Pf?= =?us-ascii?Q?zvngkEiRm3VXP58C+MQevlAVbZ1+wGdAxoiYFcJ?= =?us-ascii?Q?JCRztJABUvESIge76ICO3U557yLCqqKOhSk7jQe?= =?us-ascii?Q?gt7I36b+bhDcShG8nxFJEzH8LGZaeKHxExKWg90?= =?us-ascii?Q?X4fd6Ret62WXZnvA8Y9LQpdKA+peUGj7P5i7vib?= =?us-ascii?Q?gz8o?= X-SG-ID: =?us-ascii?Q?u001=2ESdBcvi+Evd=2FbQef8eZF3BsO1u20hzxI65BPOrY6FqT954lyjAi642soAR?= =?us-ascii?Q?F=2F2Pltdn20hWQ8Q3mDPhyO0HwmkcxqfyGPfB3qa?= =?us-ascii?Q?dB2YuWiWZg=2FPPB7ayFa1dHtiE1BvxFi++Mfkjkk?= =?us-ascii?Q?PNaViCiVwKZyOHg=3D=3D?= To: Andrew Sterling X-Entity-ID: u001.hZHiB6kKM9UW5e2fAO4iNQ== X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.4 X-Spam-Score: -43 X-Spam-Bar: ---- X-Spam-Flag: NO --5bc2ee68e3a7104570fe81c74a8aea1012388685e6157a7ec627790e16cf Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Mime-Version: 1.0

=20

Andrew, I thought you woul= d find the below article of interest…just out!

I 100% agree w= ith what this says…as I am in and out of office buildings 24/7/365. = I see first hand the half filled parking structures/lots. I see first hand = the locked offices, with notices the tenant “no longer works from thi= s office”. I see first hand when I do enter a suite no more than 50% = of it is utilized.

A continued bad time to be a landlord…but = a continued good time to be a tenant…and case in point: I just concl= uded a lease renewal for a large law firm. Aside from the seven months of r= ent abatement I obtained, I also negotiated a $30.00 per square foot &ldquo= ;tenant improvement allowance”, 100% of which the tenant = can (and will) use as additional rental abatement.
<= br>When you have a moment, Andrew, perhaps we can circle back to discuss wh= at this could mean for your firm?

Sincerely,

Jeffrey A. Tabor – Founder/CEO
Jeff@JeffTaborGroup.com
JeffTaborGroup.com
(800= ) 507-6673
RE License # 01015287

Connect with me on LinkedIn:= Jeffrey A. Tabor<= /a>

<= /p>

On Fifth Labor Day Since Pandemic Began, Return-To-Office= Rallying Cry Falls Silent

This wil= l not be the Labor Day that finally draws everyone back into the office. An= d realistically, that day might never come.

As the fifth Labor Day since the pandemic began passes, return-to-of= fice proponents appear to have moved through the stages of grief, finally a= ccepting that the end of another summer won’t convince stragglers to = suit up and come in.

<= span style=3D"font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;">The holiday once= brought bold pronouncements, creative cajoling and even threats. This year= , office cheerleaders are mostly silent, settled numbers indicate a hybrid = environment is working out for most, and while certain industries might con= tinue to push mandates, office utilization will never be what it was prepan= demic.

“The industry has accepted a new norma= l,” said Marisha Clinton, vice president of research at Savills.

Office buildings across the U.S. were about 63.7%= as busy in July 2024 as they were in July 2019, according to Avison Young&= rsquo;s Office Busyness Index, a new measure of office occupancy that analy= zes anonymized mobility data across 4,000 U.S. buildings. That is up from 5= 2.9% in July 2023, but many researchers and employers say they aren't e= xpecting another major boost this year or even next.

In other words, this could be as good as it gets for the foreseeab= le future.

Most organizations have ac= cepted hybrid working patterns as the new normal, CBRE found in its annual = office occupier sentiment survey released in August. Sixty-four percent of = occupiers surveyed said their office utilization patterns are steady.

This is up from 60% of respondents in 2023= and 43% of respondents in 2022 who said they were at a steady state.

Those numbers suggest office occupiers are= largely done with denial, anger and bargaining, especially since employers= can no longer blame a lack of office attendance on Covid-19 cases, said Vr= inda Mittal, an assistant professor of finance at the University of North C= arolina at Chapel Hill who has researched postpandemic work-from-home patte= rns.

“In 2021 or even 2022, we = were thinking, ‘Is it the pandemic or is it the demand to work from h= ome?’” Mittal said. “Now, in 2024, we can safely say that= it is the demand to work from home.”

There is now no significant movement to get employees fully back int= o the office, according to a study conducted on behalf of one of the compan= ies that benefited most from the hybrid work movement, Zoom. Hybrid work is= king, according to the online meetings giant.

About 64% of respondents to an Aug. 23 Zoom survey said their wor= kplace is implementing a hybrid model — the exact same percentage of = organizations that told CBRE they are at a steady rate of office utilizatio= n.

“About 64% of organizations = say that ‘Yep, who is coming in is coming in,’ and about a thir= d more say, ‘No, we’re still going to push the envelope,’= ” said Julie Whelan, global head of occupier thought leadership at CB= RE. “But pushing that envelope isn’t as easy as it was.”<= /span>

When occupancy was at rock bottom on = Labor Day 2020, the Busyness Index sat at 18.4%, and it was easier to expec= t employees to return to the office. Time would pass, workers would recalib= rate their routines, and employers would implement an office attendance pol= icy and reasonably expect people to follow it, Whelan said.

There was never an expectation of full office utiliz= ation, though, Clinton said.

“Even before Cov= id, offices were never 100% occupied,” she said. “We're nev= er going to get back to 100% of people in the office all the time. We will = still see those waves of people, or the majority of people in the office Tu= esday, Wednesday and Thursday.”

Some to= ok immediate postpandemic office closures as an opportunity to be more flex= ible with their lifestyles and home bases. People became untethered from th= eir office buildings, moved away from urban cores and minimized the relatio= nship between office and work, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.<= /span>

The population of New York City’s core= dropped 5% between mid-2020 and mid-2022, and San Francisco’s droppe= d 7%, the report shows. And while those populations have rebounded, the rel= ationship between work and office has not.

Since the start of the pandemic, office vacancy rates have been stub= bornly elevated. The national office vacancy rate hit a record 20.1% in the= second quarter, up from an average prepandemic rate of around 16.8%.

Yet despite high vacancy, office utilizati= on ticked back up. The Office Busyness Index hit a low of 10.7% in April 20= 20 and now sits at 63.7%, the highest since February 2020, according to Avi= son Young.

“It happened slowly,= but it happened,” Whelan said of the return to the office. “No= w we're at the stage where if organizations do not have the utilization= that they want, there's probably something that's more of a system= atic barrier in place that they need to diagnose and clear, and that doesn&= #39;t happen overnight.”

Those = barriers could include employees not understanding why they need to be in t= he office or a mismatch between executive and lower-level attendance expect= ations, she said.

But even overcoming= those hurdles wouldn’t lead to a tidal wave of people returning to t= he office, and future gains are likely to nibble around the edges, sources = told Bisnow.

Most employer-employee d= isconnects aren't extreme, Whelan said. Sixty percent of survey respond= ents said they want employees in the office at least three days a week, yet= only 51% report that employees attend that often.

“Employers want a little bit more than they're gett= ing from employees,” Whelan said. “It's not like employers = want five days a week and they're only getting one day a week. It's= really like they want four days a week and they're getting three days = a week.”

Company policies and e= mployee preferences will continue to evolve, said Harry Klaff, principal an= d U.S. president of Avison Young.

The= “time has passed in terms of setting Labor Day as the ‘goal po= st’ for RTO efforts,” but the data shows increases in office bu= syness every September since the start of the pandemic, he said, adding he = expects more incremental improvement going forward.

“These policies combined with the numerous benefits of the social an= d economic advantages of being in-person with work associates have proven e= fficacy given the +12% year over year increase in occupancy levels,” = Klaff said in an emailed statement. “We expect this trend to continue= in the future, albeit at an overall slower rate of change with variances a= mong industry sectors.”

Return-= to-office trends vary widely depending on industry and geography. The engin= eering, architecture, construction and building materials industry saw the = highest ranking in Avison Young's index in July, hitting 81.9% of prepa= ndemic office usage. The tech industry, which has suffered more than 400,00= 0 layoffs since 2022, sat near the bottom at 54.2%.

San Francisco and its large concentration of tech companies posted = a 53.8% office utilization rate in July. The outer boroughs of New York Cit= y reached 87.2%, the highest in the nation.

“If you have a law firm where you really want all of your empl= oyees in the office a majority of the time or a financial services company = where you want the employee in the office the majority of the time, you'= ;re going to really push those mandates,” Clinton said.=

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to office a= ttendance, she said. But the Zoom survey shows hybrid work prevails: 64% of= workers follow a hybrid schedule of some kind. Remote work makes up anothe= r 19% of responses, and just 17% of respondents are in the office daily.

The Zoom survey stresses that the workp= lace is still evolving, and 75% of office leaders remain optimistic that it= is moderately to very likely their organization will change their workplac= e models in the next two years. That hope is largely driven by the desire t= o increase productivity, with 84% citing that factor. About 62% of leaders = also said they were motivated by being able to recruit talent more broadly.=

It is reasonable and expected that o= ffice utilization will creep up again slightly as summer vacations wrap up = this week, Clinton said. But it won’t be the postpandemic attendance = wave office proponents once fantasized about.

&ldqu= o;Naturally, once we do get into the cooler months, the fall months, you wi= ll expect to see more people in the office,” Clinton said. “But= at the end of the day, do not expect that to translate into a greater dema= nd for space and then more leasing activity.”

Jeff Tabor Group=A0| 501 W. Broadway, Suite 800= =A0| San Diego=A0| CA | 92101

Unsubscribe = | =20

--5bc2ee68e3a7104570fe81c74a8aea1012388685e6157a7ec627790e16cf Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Mime-Version: 1.0

=20

Jeffrey A. Tabor<= /strong> – Founder/CEO
Jeff@JeffTaborGroup.com<= /a>
JeffTaborGroup.com
(800) 507-6673
RE License # 01= 015287

Connect with me on LinkedIn: Jeffrey A. Tabor

On Fifth Labor Day Since Pandemic Be= gan, Return-To-Office Rallying Cry Falls Silent

This will not be the Labor Day that finally draws everyone bac= k into the office. And realistically, that day might never come.

As the fifth Labor Day since the pandemic began= passes, return-to-office proponents appear to have moved through the stage= s of grief, finally accepting that the end of another summer won’t co= nvince stragglers to suit up and come in.

The holiday once brought bold pronouncements, creative cajoling and = even threats. This year, office cheerleaders are mostly silent, settled num= bers indicate a hybrid environment is working out for most, and while certa= in industries might continue to push mandates, office utilization will neve= r be what it was prepandemic.

“The industry h= as accepted a new normal,” said Marisha Clinton, vice president of re= search at Savills.

Office buildings across the U.S. were about 63.7% as= busy in July 2024 as they were in July 2019, according to Avison Young&rsq= uo;s Office Busyness Index, a new measure of office occupancy that analyzes= anonymized mobility data across 4,000 U.S. buildings. That is up from 52.9= % in July 2023, but many researchers and employers say they aren't expe= cting another major boost this year or even next.

In other words, this could be as good as it gets for the foreseeable= future.

This is up from 60% of respondents in 2023= and 43% of respondents in 2022 who said they were at a steady state.

There was never an expectation of full office utiliz= ation, though, Clinton said.

Some took immediate postp= andemic office closures as an opportunity to be more flexible with their li= festyles and home bases. People became untethered from their office buildin= gs, moved away from urban cores and minimized the relationship between offi= ce and work, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.

The population of New York City’s core dropped 5% betwee= n mid-2020 and mid-2022, and San Francisco’s dropped 7%, the report s= hows. And while those populations have rebounded, the relationship between = work and office has not.

Since the st= art of the pandemic, office vacancy rates have been stubbornly elevated. Th= e national office vacancy rate hit a record 20.1% in the second quarter, up= from an average prepandemic rate of around 16.8%.

Yet despite high vacancy, office utilization ticked back up. = The Office Busyness Index hit a low of 10.7% in April 2020 and now sits at = 63.7%, the highest since February 2020, according to Avison Young.

“It happened slowly, but it happened,&r= dquo; Whelan said of the return to the office. “Now we're at the = stage where if organizations do not have the utilization that they want, th= ere's probably something that's more of a systematic barrier in pla= ce that they need to diagnose and clear, and that doesn't happen overni= ght.”

Those barriers could incl= ude employees not understanding why they need to be in the office or a mism= atch between executive and lower-level attendance expectations, she said.

But even overcoming those hurdles woul= dn’t lead to a tidal wave of people returning to the office, and futu= re gains are likely to nibble around the edges, sources told Bisnow.=

Most employer-employee disconnects aren'= ;t extreme, Whelan said. Sixty percent of survey respondents said they want= employees in the office at least three days a week, yet only 51% report th= at employees attend that often.

&ldqu= o;Employers want a little bit more than they're getting from employees,= ” Whelan said. “It's not like employers want five days a we= ek and they're only getting one day a week. It's really like they w= ant four days a week and they're getting three days a week.”

Company policies and employee preferences= will continue to evolve, said Harry Klaff, principal and U.S. president of= Avison Young.

The “time has pa= ssed in terms of setting Labor Day as the ‘goal post’ for RTO e= fforts,” but the data shows increases in office busyness every Septem= ber since the start of the pandemic, he said, adding he expects more increm= ental improvement going forward.

“These polic= ies combined with the numerous benefits of the social and economic advantag= es of being in-person with work associates have proven efficacy given the += 12% year over year increase in occupancy levels,” Klaff said in an em= ailed statement. “We expect this trend to continue in the future, alb= eit at an overall slower rate of change with variances among industry secto= rs.”

Return-to-office trends vary widely depending on ind= ustry and geography. The engineering, architecture, construction and buildi= ng materials industry saw the highest ranking in Avison Young's index i= n July, hitting 81.9% of prepandemic office usage. The tech industry, which= has suffered more than 400,000 layoffs since 2022, sat near the bottom at = 54.2%.

San Francisco and its large concentra= tion of tech companies posted a 53.8% office utilization rate in July. The = outer boroughs of New York City reached 87.2%, the highest in the nation.

“If you have a law firm where yo= u really want all of your employees in the office a majority of the time or= a financial services company where you want the employee in the office the= majority of the time, you're going to really push those mandates,&rdqu= o; Clinton said.

There is no one-size= -fits-all approach to office attendance, she said. But the Zoom survey show= s hybrid work prevails: 64% of workers follow a hybrid schedule of some kin= d. Remote work makes up another 19% of responses, and just 17% of responden= ts are in the office daily.

The Zoom = survey stresses that the workplace is still evolving, and 75% of office lea= ders remain optimistic that it is moderately to very likely their organizat= ion will change their workplace models in the next two years. That hope is = largely driven by the desire to increase productivity, with 84% citing that= factor. About 62% of leaders also said they were motivated by being able t= o recruit talent more broadly.

It is = reasonable and expected that office utilization will creep up again slightl= y as summer vacations wrap up this week, Clinton said. But it won’t b= e the postpandemic attendance wave office proponents once fantasized about.=

“Naturally, once we do get into the cooler m= onths, the fall months, you will expect to see more people in the office,&r= dquo; Clinton said. “But at the end of the day, do not expect that to= translate into a greater demand for space and then more leasing activity.&= rdquo;

Jeff Tabor Group=A0| 501 W. Broadway, Suite 800= =A0| San Diego=A0| CA | 92101

Unsubscribe | =20

--5bc2ee68e3a7104570fe81c74a8aea1012388685e6157a7ec627790e16cf--