I wonder who the hell is going to buy those spaces now? Would be nice to see some repurposed for more affordable living in the city.

Some of them are built on literal toxic sites, in particular, the Apple campus is. There are ongoing lawsuits about this, but I don't think it's widely covered

Toxic sites? So definitely turned into affordable housing?

That and converting into malls or multipurpose offices for startups are probably some of the options that'll be used. Hopefully they go to good use one way or another

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You might want to visit the place first

Source for that? The land used to be controlled by HP before.

No thanks. If it isn't that already, just wait a little longer. Soon, just like SF and LA, you will reep the rewards of your politics.

They were cleaned up. Before the new buildings were built.

You're thinking of Ashley Govik's suits. She's not getting any traction and it's unclear she will.

For lawsuits of the sort of "I don't like my workplace conditions" her lawsuits are incredibly widely covered.

I think she has lawsuits against an apartment complex she lived in too.

If nobody wants to be there, why is everything so overpriced?

"Nobody goes there, it's too crowded."

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> Just wait for it. Let's come back and revisit this thread in one year. I will happily eat my words with a side of feces.

Oh, you'll eat those words. A year isn't long enough for a place like Silicon Valley to empty out.

> The rich rats flee the ship, then the fun begins in the vacuum left behind.

The rich rats already left. Larry Ellison is gone, National Instruments is owned by Texas Instruments. Idiot Elon Musk left for Texas. And other rich people filled the voids so far. A year from now it'll be the same. Maybe it'll be different in five or ten years.

And the same can be said for any place, including Texas.

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tell me when its 30$ for campus, i am a bit of fan of campusiess myself. ill buy wone.

that even makes bigger the probability to make you toxic avenger +1

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Nobody is gonna pay for unaffordable housing on a toxic site.

a lot of formerly toxic sites are built different. instead of developer building and selling or leasing 5-10 years, they build and lease for long term 25+ years so any issues with the toxicity are pre negotiated with the developer, builder, tenant. and everyone is covered financially so if actually toxic in year 26, developer can walk away risk free

edit: this is going on in philly right now with hillco developers on former gas facility that closed after explosions

Did Detroit ever figure it out?

So this campus was built and designed for something that everyone figured out how to do from home? All these companies also became hyper efficient, and had way to high of a head count for a long time?

I've heard people talk about affordable housing, but what would the jobs be if all the jobs were at the campus? If these jobs can be done remotely, why would anyone pay for a higher cost of living employee? Just because a person costs more, doesn't mean they are the best choice.

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real estate is due to crash next.

The next cycle of big tech will buy them.

No, HP. My first job out of college was at that site. It was mostly just offices, but they had an IC fab there in the 80s, and apparently there was some soil contamination. There’s probably many similar situations throughout the South Bay. It’s not like it was a nuclear waste dump or something.

Hotels and Condos, may be hospitals.

They are all wfh. Gone are the days when you could attract a top talent to drop into work every day. The top talent nowadays is working remote.

As it should be. When a common man can’t buy a home where they work, then the market is wrong.

Nah, most of these places that set up "second headquarters" in recent years were setting themselves up to exit Silicon Valley way before this happened. It's fucking expensive to own and operate out there, and as long as they can offload while prices are high, that's a big bonus to shareholders.

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Soooooo anyone think the rents will come down?

I mean there’s so many homeless in the Bay Area on account of the tech industry

If only congress would outlaw big banks/hedge funds/investors from buying all those properties with cash.

sad trombone noise

WFH is the future for most tech employees , they are also moving to areas without absurd cost of living and lots od problems.

Yeah, think of the building and the layout. I.e. in apartments, everyone has a bathroom, plumbing etc. In an office, there MAY be one kitchen per floor, a two bathrooms right next to each other, etc. Shared HVAC systems, etc.

Converting it means gutting everything from electrical to plumbing.

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The site of the Ebola Reston outbreak in Virginia became a daycare.

That makes too much sense for CA

We are getting to the point where we simply have too many people. With AI, drones, robots, and being able to work from home humans are less and less necessary. There will always be need for certain things only humans can do, but there are just WAY MORE people than can be sustained with everyone being happy and healthy.

They are selling them because people are WFH.

Silicon valley really need greater residential density. They should teat them down and build high-rise apartments until rents drop by half.

Good, going to the office is a dead concept.

That won’t happen, the Bay Area homeowners block all residential expansion and high rises so they can sustain their overpriced real estate.

That’s the whole peninsula. No one talks about how Lockheed poisoned the earth here.

Doesn’t matter. We throw the first in continents and we seal the “plume” while working.

Damn google is building that self sustaining campus on Caribbean avenue in Sunnyvale, makes sense to sell there other campuses in Sunnyvale.

Most tech companies want to return to office cause they sign 10+ year leases and want asses in those seats. Also pretty sure alot of big companies get tax breaks for having offices in certain cities which they don’t want to lose, but it makes no sense to pay rent on empty buildings.

The company i work for was one of the first to jump on the “work from anywhere” wagon. Now they want everyone on go back to the office 4 times per week. Unless you were already remote in the first place

But without their Silicon Valley campuses how will they connect through the blockchain to network with AI to synergize with local companies.

That feels really dumb and counterproductive, but I don't own a 2mm house that has bars in its windows, doesn't have curbs or sidewalks and is a block from El Camino Real, so....

I wonder if annual tax breaks are bigger than annual rent costs for the offices?

Probably crazy zoning laws that would somehow block that

Another reason is because someone up top will own the property outright and then lease it to the company.

The writing was on the wall before the pandemic, which only accelerated the inevitable.

This is a narrative you see alot, the fact is the portion of single family homes bought by hedge funds/institutional investors is small. The REAL problem is rampant NIMBYism that chokes supply of new housing

in my area 40%+ of the single family homes are owned by corporations. so no, it is a big fucking problem.

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Imagine the money these companies could save if they just allowed their people to WFH.

I give it a few years till the pendulum swings back. I don’t see full in office work but expect a hybrid model of plan in person, execute remote, to become much more standard.

Source?

But these same companies often have development offices in India; they are on daily meetings with people they'll never see in person.

As US layoffs continue they've replaced some roles with contractors from Brazil, Argentina, Poland, etc at 1/3 the price of US staff.

With all these 'remote' teammates there's no logical reason the remaining US-based staff have to be in the office either. This has all happened at my 5,000 person company and they have shuttered 70% of their US office space and now use the remaining offices for monthly events and hot desking.

There's no going back.

Found the realtor

> multipurpose offices for startups

This is purely anecdotal but I haven’t seen a startup offer anything other than full remote roles with the occasional option to be hybrid in the past couple of years so I’m thinking they’re mostly not interested in investing in real estate. But I guess maybe they could be massive coworking spaces?

https://www.fastcompany.com/90792419/12-mega-landlords-own-majority-of-the-san-francisco-bay-area

https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/06/22/bay-area-ranks-16th-in-the-u-s-in-share-of-investor-bought-homes/

https://www.kqed.org/news/11795988/we-dont-know-whos-buying-up-bay-area-homes

https://pestakeholder.org/news/private-equity-owned-realtors-on-san-francisco-chronicles-list-of-the-bay-areas-largest-most-influential-ownership-networks/

Give them back to the Japanese families who originally owned some of that land pre-WW2.

EDIT: Apparently the Reddit hivemind disapproves of giving land to its rightful owners...

Please let this be real!

Next at 6: tech workers leave the Bay Area, en masse, and real estate prices return to normal

💯

-20+ real estate pro

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So stick them in a giant open concept structure with no guidance and no barriers and hope for the best?

Why don't they just rent it out? lol /s

Hehehehe

No.

Zoning laws would block most anything you wanted to do with them. The bay area has some of the most restrictive zoming in the world. That's why despite the lack of housing and insane rent proces, the vast majority of land is still dedicated to single-family homes. They loterally are not allowed to do anything else with it

The bay will be forced to redo their zoning eventually. It's already stunted the growth the area could have had to become a large diversified metro area

Bigger problem is the overall lack of housing due to rampant overzealous zoning laws. Let people build dense housing, the cost will fall when supply increases

The fact the majority of the area is zoned to only allow single family housing is the problem. It artificially constrains supply, thus increasing price

I have heard the same but I think moving forward if this conversion is to succeed it will need to be cheaper.

Why not just add a false floorboard to the entire floor and run plumbing and electrical in that space?

Who owns these buildings.

Even big tech cannot afford Silicon Valley? How? And what is the chance of startups thriving in a place where taxes are all time high?

It seems like Texas is going to be the new tech hub.

The banks that have the 30 years lease/mortgage on their balance sheet and would be fucked if this buildings would be priced fairly as totally use- and worthless?

Malls? I thought the US was overbuilt in mall space?

Hasn’t crashed yet. Bought my Arizona house 6 years ago and sold it for a $350,000.00 profit after realtor fees last week. California is a shithole run by shitbags, everyone should move out.

We don’t even vacation there anymore because plastic straws are illegal, been going to Florida instead.

Startups are going full remote at a higher rate than big tech. Two startups I previously worked at are now full remote.

Same reason you don't generally do it at home.

Edit: water pressure.

More edit:. There is a LOT of engineering that goes into water pressure.

I would 100% do this at home

Malls and offices? Aren't those two specifically noted as casualties of e-commerce and work-from-home jobs?

It needs to be housing and green space.

Have fun with not understanding water pressure!

What?

Exactly! Water pressure is a gigantic issue.

Also, when your done with that, remind yourself why water and electricity don't go well together.

What the fuck are you talking about

You would put your plumbing, and electricity under your floor boards, without understanding why they don't do that now?

They do do that now what the fuck are you talking about

Make a point

Oh no!

Anyway...

Yes and no - I work for a big tech company yet half of my team is in one city, half in another. Neither are in California. I think a lot of companies hired talent outside of SF as well during COVID, so there's a lot of mixed location teams that couldn't plan together in office anyway

I don’t know if I agree. I worked for a company that forced people back in for 2-3 days of the week (your choice on which day). Most days I commute over an hour just to sit in an empty conference room and zoom with people who are now in different cities or working remote and didn’t come in that day. Massive waste of energy and time.

Not having plastic straws really kills the vacation huh?

Vacation is suppose to be fun and relaxing.

It is very hard to relax when every time you eat you are reminded you are a slave to government greed and corruption.

The ban of plastic straws is the perfect example of government tyranny.

I’ll sleep in my car before paying someone for the privilege of staying in their shitty apartment.

You okay dude?

You know you can buy your own straws, right?

A: the nypost? Really?

B: There is no actual struggle or in fact downturn ATM. WFH makes the campuses a waste.

>sign 10+ year leases^(*)

^(*)Which are owned by shell companies controlled by members of the Board.

Sounds like CA appropriate with all that thieving shit show.

And don't forget the massive reductions(or just coming back to normal after growing stupidly quick for a few years)

Why would I buy my own plastic straws? They are free everywhere but California

Bruh if not having a plastic straw in a restaurant is what you think tyranny is, you must live a pretty soft life

We already produce more than enough food for every single person on earth to eat healthy. This is blatantly false

Tyranny comes in many forms. First it is plastic straws, then it is soda, next it is taking away your right to bear arms, then freedom of speech. Before ya know it you are living in a shit hole country like China

But that's the problem, someone else is buying those houses, and the market keeps going and will keep going.

As of now in March 2023, the market has slowed down and a bit less expensive, which was why the interest rates were raised. However, is not like houses sit on the market for long. As some other mentioned, there are a bunch of real estate managers buying houses/apartments and renting them, probably to that common man you mentioned.

They would need: to make credits easier for people who can't afford it, idk mark them as high-risk and give them a higher but variable interest rate, and then everyone can buy a house!!! /S (<- just in case people don't know, this is exactly the idea and what caused 2007 crash)

If there is a struggle it is to impress stock holders as cost cutting has been a fad. Google and plenty of others are plenty profitable.

Malls are dying hard, not a great take on that one

At this rate Florida is closer to outlawing bare arms than CA (at least for women)

Florida Weapons and Firearms statute, recognizes that all adult citizens of the state retain their constitutional right to keep and bear firearms for hunting and sporting activities and for defense of self, family, home, and business and as collectibles.

Women are not excluded in the constitution.

I’m an engineer who understands water pressure and have no idea what your concern about it is…

Water service is the easiest thing in a building, the pressurized system means you can make vertical bends, use flexible tubing, etc. sanitary is the tricky one since it drains by gravity.

Bruh we’re talking about bare arms, not guns. Stay on topic.

No that is the problem. Private companies own a minuscule amount homes in compared to the public. We simply need more supply, and there’s little incentive to build to match the demand.

I am on topic it is everyone’s right to bear arms or have bare arms.

Men and women can identify as a man, woman, or even a rock, so everyone has the right to bare arms. Arm Hair is nasty anyways.

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Good they need to convert all those empty spaces into living spaces and apartments. People need a place to live out there.

Both water and electricity run through my walls. Do you think they are just mixing around in there together? Lmao.

It certainly will not be going to help affordable housing

Offices are nice. But cubicles open layouts and terrible commutes are what makes wfh better.

Oh no!

Anyway…

Why not just demolish them all and convert it back into parkland, orchards, farm land, public execution squares? Like Detroit?

Yes but it's harder to see. Since the real estate crash won't be over night and covered on Twitter

If only someone could crash these big banks / hedge funds to force them to fire sale properties and govt buys them and rent/sells them to people who can't afford homes.

Let's outlaw zoning laws. Then the problem will be solved.

Yes let's make the office and office space historical documentaries.

I can see hybrid happening but not on the weekly basis everyone's trying RN. The whole "you need to be in office 2/5 days every week" is so bad IMO. Everyone picks different days so you don't actually get the desired productivity of everyone sitting down and working together. Having 2 work days different from the other 3 throws off a lot of routines resulting in a bunch of wasted time. Plus when people are actually in the office together they spend a lot of time socializing because they haven't seen each other in a week. (Which I guess isn't terrible from a team building perspective but there are better options)

It needs to be spaced out and concentrated to minimize the disruption from changing work locations while maximizing the benefits of working collaboratively. Something kind of like the annual shows/expos/conferences that a lot of industries have but at the company or team level (depending on company size) and a little more frequent (monthly, every few months etc). Ideally they have some well thought out goals/projects you need to work towards together and a couple social activities for team bonding while everyone's together.

Por que no los dos??

Low supply of housing = high prices

High prices = people can't buy houses but corporations can

Houses still being bought at high prices = even higher prices

Even higher prices = people still can't buy houses

Condo prices in San Fran are already down 20%, which is beating the national average drop explained by mortgage rates

Certain industries like biotech require physical workspaces though, so maybe those?

Were legit in the midst of a commercial real estate crisis. Much better than residential as it mostly effects people with a ton of money, but we’re about to witness it regardless unless they make people come back to office.

I know people may not like this, but I think state or local government should buy the land to build affordable housing since nobody else will

Commercial real estate. People still need places to live

That’s not how this works

Examples?

Yeah who's clamouring for more malls lol

I'm guessing that he's mostly concerned with, and talking about, skyscrapers where they're so tall that the water pressure can be a problem for the higher floors.

Downtown Dallas has started doing this recently. All those downtown office skyscrapers are being converted into housing which is definitely a nice step to reinvigorating downtown to a place people live instead of just commute to

And, if you are launching a new startup you’re no longer gonna commit to big leases when you could use that money for R&D.

The residents that ensure these zoning laws care more about their home prices being elevated then the growth of the area.

A better idea would be to introduce regulation for big-banks to price property rentals at or slightly below market rents with high fees for keeping properties vacant to drive up the cost of rentals.

They'll quickly realize they're not making as much money as they want and will sell the properties themselves.

For software. For hardware, I have to go to work. I can’t properly bring up and debug hardware at home. Just don’t have the required equipment.

That's a way to do it. Changing zoning still has issues with NIMBYs fighting against it.

"How much do you tip your landlord?" vibes.

My team and coordinate when we will go into the office. And sometimes we go weeks without going in and sometimes we have to go in everyday for a few weeks. Really depends on where we are on a project. Go in during initial brainstorming. WFH doing the bulk of the early software development. Back to the office to do bring-up and debug on new hardware.

**Someone already replied but I'll put it again, BayArea owners keep on voting against to put more residential buildings to protect their overpriced real estate.

This is the reality tbh.

So you might see these spaces mostly getting converted to some kind of mall or something else which doesn't effect the house prices**

Poor tech companies, hopefully our government gives them a bailout.

Those need special permitting and they usually can't be in spaces designed for offices without a ton of construction. So yes it could be done, but it would be super expensive in an already ass expensive area. It's why a ton of biotechs are moving to Texas.

This sounds like an article in an Silicon Valley episode about Pied Piper.

But about that return to office, we still need you in at least a few times a week.

Malls? What is this, 1983? Even out here in the Midwest where you need indoor shopping with heating when it’s under 20° and AC when it’s over 100°, malls are dead. We had so many, now we’re down to 3, and only 1 of them ever has any people at it. The other two are half vacant units too

Dot com meltdown part 2?

They all live in Tahoe now. Probably planning on draining the lake to build more campuses.

Because people are Waffle House?

Residential conversion is a tough one - a vicious cycle is already well underway. The value of a business park condo is the proximity to work, but if work is trying to get out of the business park...

Coworking isn't completely unreasonable, but that's 1) a LOT of space; and 2) still in a business park - not sure it's worth an investment. There's companies that've dumped half that footage right in the middle of urban centers and the coworking companies won't touch it.

I figure it has to be REITs gobbling buildings up at steep discounts and doing a heck of a lot of work apportioning into smaller offices for leasing. Even though I think it's the most likely, it's still really tricky...

A company that would have killed for a 10K sqft. lease in 2018 (but were getting pushed out of the market in favour of the bigger guys willing to take 5-10x the footage) likely aren't interested at standard lease terms anymore.

A 10 year term isn't going to be attractive to 95% of companies, and with the amount of folks stuck with 5+ years left on a pre-COVID term trying to dump to a sublease it makes even less sense to be a primary lessee.

A valid alternative option might be hotels. Conversion costs aside, there's a good concentration of tech HQs in the area who (even with fewer on premise employees) will still have visitors. In my experience, the business park Omni's and Westin's seemed to do brisk business and I get it... There's not exactly a ton to do in Menlo Park or Redwood City, but sometimes you just want to get in and out of there.

Please god, no malls.

Most of these campuses in the original article do not have any skyscrapers so if the concern is based on that, it’s not really applicable.

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Yep this is exactly what companies should do/are doing.

I go into the office once every 6 months for an entire week at a time, and so does my entire team

Sounds like every tech startup

Regulate and unionized so when they fail there's something coming $ for the employees retirement and such

The campuses and tech culture would stay around if SF government was competent and the FED stopped implementing ridiculously rate hikes. "Hike it until it's gone" really is becoming "hike it until it's gone"

6x6 cubicle 2000/mo + 1/64 utilities and association fees.

“Struggles” lol as if.

That is not really compatible with the other news saying these companies really want their employees to work in the offices.

Kowloon, CA

That sounds ideal TBH, doing whatever makes the most sense for the given situation instead of enforcing a bunch of rules just cause that's the way it's always been

They really want people to return to the offices so that their investment in said offices makes sense.

Employees saying "no" is what's causing them to have to choose to sell them instead.

I don't understand how this is inconsistent - if you had a car you haven't driven in two years, might you list it for sale rather than continue to pay registration/car payments on it?