San Francisco certainly isn’t the only major U.S. city experiencing high office vacancy rates, but its numbers are among the most severe.
We took a look at Cushman & Wakefield’s Office MarketBeat reports to see how the city’s office vacancy rates and asking rent compare to other cities.
When putting them side by side with 10 other metros, a few things stand out. San Francisco’s vacancy rate has the largest percent increase between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the end of 2022, thanks in part to how tight the market was before the pandemic.
Among the 10 other cities we studied — New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Boston, Houston, Phoenix, Chicago, Miami, and Denver — the vacancy rate percentage change in that period ranges from 22.1% to 129.4%. The average vacancy rate percent increase was 56%.
San Francisco was also one of only two cities (along with New York) whose asking rents decreased during this period — from $82.40 to $73.70 per square foot. New York’s asking rents fell 1.1%.