2 More San Francisco Office Buildings Hit The Market At Steep Discounts

Two new listings for office properties in downtown San Francisco shine new light on how much valuations have fallen in the once high-flying market. 

A 138K SF building at 123 Townsend St. is on the market, according to Real Estate Alert, a division of Green Street News, and is expected to sell for about $90M, far off the $140M CBRE Investment Management paid for it in July 2020. 

Newmark is handling the transaction, according to the report.

Similarly, Real Estate Alert pointed to the listing of a 157K SF building at 60 Spear St. The anticipated list price of $55M is half what New York-based Clarion Property Partners paid for it in the summer of 2022. JLL is handling that listing.

“The offerings come as early results from a wave of distressed listings suggest that pricing dislocation in the city may be worse than initially feared,” Real Estate Alert said in the report published on Tuesday. 

The news follows reports that SKS Real Estate Partners will pay $67.5M for the 300K SF building at 350 California St. in the heart of the Financial District, a fraction of the $250M sought when the skyscraper hit the market in 2020. The seller was Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

The San Francisco Business Times reported the sale, at about $220 per SF, could serve as a new bellwether for office sales in the city. San Francisco continues to struggle with high vacancy rates that bring down the value of properties.

350 California, for example, was nearly 75% vacant at the time of sale, according to the Business Times. 

The building at 123 Townsend St., by contrast, is 73% leased to PayPal, considered a stable tenant that has invested its own dollars into the property. The $652 per SF price tag indicates how much difference a strong tenant base can make.

The 38% occupied 60 Spear St. will ask about $350 per SF, according to Real Estate Alert.