Category: Tips

How the Sale of Your Building Could Cost You Money

Jarvis
Howard Jarvis – Author of Prop 13

California’s Proposition 13 provides a statutory limit on annual increases to the assessed value of a property. Basically, the state general levy tax rate is limited to 1.0% of the property’s value and cannot increase more than 2.0% per year, unless the building is sold, more than 50% is transferred, or substantial new construction is completed.  (Note that the tax rate can and usually does exceed 1% because there is no limitation on municipal tax rates or special assessments).

So what does this mean to California’s office tenants?  If the building you occupy sells to a new owner during your tenancy, the building could be reassessed at a much higher value than when you initially moved in, and you could get stuck with a substantial increased tax bill passthrough.

Let’s assume that your company leases 10,000 square feet in a 100,000 square foot building (10% pro rata share)  and signs a 5-year lease in 2013.  Let’s also assume that the building hasn’t been sold in a while, and therefore has a low property tax assessment.  For our example, we’ll pretend that the building is currently valued at $200 per square foot, or, $20,000,000, and that in 2013 property taxes for the building were approximately $300,000 (at a rate of 1.5%).

Increases in operating expenses such as property taxes are passed through to tenants and collected according to the tenants’ pro rata share.  Therefore, when taxes are increased by 2.0% to $306,000 in 2014, you will have to pay your 10% share of the $6,000 increase, or $600.

However, let’s say that in 2014 the owner of your building decides to sell it to an investor for $50,000,000 ($500/SF), the property is reassessed and taxed on the new value, and the property taxes are increased to $750,000.  In this example, the increase in property taxes from 2013 to 2014 would be $444,000 and since your firm occupies 10% of the building, you’d get handed a bill for $44,000.  And the fun part? You’ll get to pay that bill every year until your term runs out.

So is there any way to avoid this?  Yes, but it’s highly unlikely.  If you’re a large tenant in a soft market, you may be successful in negotiating “Prop 13 Protection” into your lease, whereby any “Due On Sale” taxes cannot be passed through to you.  Building owners are extremely resistant to agreeing to this, however, as it adversely affects the selling price.  Another strategy, if you know a sale is imminent, is to try and get your Base Year set to the year of the anticipated sale which could be achieved in a new lease or upon a renewal.

For everyone else, it is crucial that you do your homework before signing a new lease or renewing your existing one.  Being well informed is the name of the game.  Assuming you do business in a market that continues to appreciate, the more time that has passed since a property’s last reassessment, the larger the increase will be upon a sale.  Think of it like a rubber band; the more you stretch it, the more it’s going to hurt when it snaps.

Knowing not only when the subject property was last reassessed but also the likelihood the ownership could change hands during your tenancy should be a top priority and can help you avoid egregious and unexpected pass through expenses that most all office tenants are exposed to.

Moving Your Network to New Office Space

By: Morgan Spake
President, AGC

Moving to a new office means moving your internet and phone connections. There is a process called “Network Due Diligence” that answers the question, “Will my network function at the new office?” and addresses items related to cost, risk mitigation, fail over, and current contract obligations that need to be addressed prior to the move. Timing is critical and the process should commence no later than 90 days prior to the office relocation. Ideally, it is preferable to complete Network Due Diligence before the lease is signed, since it’s important to learn early on if quality, reliable and affordable internet connections are available at the new office. Your current Internet Service Provider may not have adequate service at the new address, so another provider that fits your tolerance for risk and budget must be identified and selected.

Internet Broker: Think of the ISP (internet service provider) as the landlord who wants to “rent” an internet connection to you based on 12, 24, or 36 month terms, and all enterprise grade bandwidth pricing can be adjusted based on competing offers. An Internet Broker can gather competing offers and actually drive your monthly costs lower. The Internet Broker receives a commission from the ISP and can therefore offer this free service to the client.

Cabling: A free evaluation will help determine the type and quantity of cables needed for your new office.  Many existing office spaces can be described as “plug and play”, where the cabling already is installed, however it is in your best interest to have the cabling tested, regardless. The space may have been divided, and the landlord does not keep records on, or guarantee pre-existing installed cabling.

Network Move Management: This is a service that allows you to outsource the entire network move operation whereby several companies are part of the network move such as: Cabling, Phone, IT, Riser Management and one or more Internet Service Providers. An experienced network move coordinator can guide your team through the decision making process during the network move.

Help! My Landlord Wants to Double My Rent!

ScaredIf you’re an office tenant in San Francisco (or any other market where vacancy is plummeting), there’s no doubt you’ll probably face a substantial rent hike upon your upcoming lease expiration. Since 2010, rents in the City have risen 39% and in 2012 alone, 24%; representing the biggest gain of any market in the world.

Relocating your office can be expensive and disruptive to your business, so if your first choice is to stay and renew, here are a few strategies that can help mitigate the rental increase.  The days of passive negotiation are gone; you need to be proactive.

  1. Renew your lease as early as you can.  The sooner you renew, the lower your rate will be.  Unfortunately, your landlord is also aware of this and typically will not renew your lease if too much term is remaining.  They’d much rather have you come back to negotiate at a later date, when rents are higher.  Every ownership is motivated by different things, however, so it doesn’t hurt to begin the dialogue early. 
  2. Explore options outside of your building.  Even if you fully intend to stay, you need to get out in the market and see what else is available.  You cannot expect to have any negotiating leverage with your landlord if their property is your ONLY option.
  3. Explore options within your current landlord’s portfolio.  If you’re getting priced out of your current office space, perhaps there’s a less expensive option elsewhere in the building on a lower floor, or even within another building your landlord owns.
  4. Reduce your square footage.  One of the most effective ways to reduce your monthly operating expenses is to simply lease less space.  Identify inefficiencies within your current space and consider consolidation or reconfiguration.  Are there employees in private offices that could be just as effective in a workstation?  Could employees who are out of the office regularly share a common workspace? There also might be an opportunity to “give back” some space upon your renewal whereby the landlord carves out a section of your office and builds a demising wall, thus reducing your rentable square footage.
  5. Hire a commercial real estate advisor.  Your broker is the best source of market information, and when you’re well-represented, your landlord knows you have access to valuable market information and may potentially relocate if they don’t offer you a fair deal.  But your broker also knows something your landlord does: renewing existing tenants is cheaper for the landlord than signing leases with new ones. Should you leave the building, the landlord will temporarily lose rent while the space is unoccupied. Also, brokerage commissions and tenant improvement allowances are typically higher on new leases.  Your broker will quantify these costs, translate them into real numbers your landlord can understand and then make a business case as to why your renewal rate should be lower than their current asking rate.

Rental increases are a natural part of the cycle and being prepared and proactive is the best way to mitigate an inevitable rental hike.  Ultimately, you’ll need to weigh out the two options of either staying in your space and softening the blow, or relocating to a less expensive building or submarket.

See also: When is the Best Time to Renew an Office Lease?

The Truth About Green Offices

As a San Francisco-based commercial real estate broker who specializes in helping office tenants create healthier, more energy-efficient work environments, it’s exciting to see the progress we’ve made in moving these issues to the forefront of the discussion.  The moniker “green” has gone from being “hippy”, to trendy, to en vogue, to cliché and now it’s the standard.  Call it what you will, but this framework of thinking is here to stay and will benefit not only us, but generations to follow.

outside

Having said that, and for lack of a better phrase, we need to keep it real and constantly remind ourselves that it’s not the perception of sustainability that matters, but the reality and implementation of it.  To the corporate decision makers that are reading this post, place the health of your employees and the sustenance of our earth first. Healthy employees are intrinsically happy, productive employees, and energy and waste reduction both on-site and within your supply chain directly and positively affects a company’s bottom line; these are facts.  Everyone wins.

I want to share what I feel are the most important decisions you can make when locating and operating your business, from a sustainability perspective.  It doesn’t matter the line of business you’re in, these are principles that can benefit us all.

Location, location, location.

Where you do business is just as important as how you do business.  If an option, give preference to high-density locations where your employees can commute to work via mass transit while eliminating their need to drive somewhere to get lunch or grab a coffee with a client.  Encourage and reward employees who bike or take a bus to work.  There are federal incentives available that can benefit you and your employees such as the Commuter Check program that can save companies up to 10% on their payroll tax expenses while saving their employees up to 40% on their commute costs.

Reduce, reuse, and yes, recycle.

Tearing down the construction of an entire floor in an office tower and building it back up with sustainable materials doesn’t make you “green”.  Too often I see perfectly useful tenant improvements demo’d and sent to a landfill while new resources are acquired and constructed.  Not only does this translate into unnecessary additional expenses for the office tenant, but it puts an unnecessary burden on our earth.  Identify spaces that more closely match your desired configuration, and you’ll reduce construction waste and monetary spending.  They’re out there, it just takes a little more effort.

Think beyond your company.

In addition to making better informed purchasing decisions within your office, are the values and mission of the vendors in your supply chain congruent with your own?  We vote with our purchasing dollars each time we place an order.  You, NOT the supplier, create demand.  Give preference to companies that are also taking pro-active steps to reduce their consumption and waste, such as your office supply vendor.  The market will punish companies that don’t, and reward those that do.  Change starts with you.

Reduce toxicity in the workplace.

Typical office environments have the potential to be highly toxic and can negatively affect the performance, happiness and productivity of your employees.  If you’re a decision maker, you have a responsibility to provide a safe, healthy workplace.  Give preference to properties with operable windows, abundant natural daylight and landlords that use low-voc paints and carpeting.  Segregate copiers in enclosed rooms with adequate ventilation.  Decorate your office with plants that are known to cleanse the air and remove chemical vapors while absorbing carbon dioxide.  Consider purchasing used or refurbished office furniture, as it has already off-gassed harmful chemicals and vapors.

Engage your employees.

The greenest tenant improvements in the world will be ineffective if the building’s occupants aren’t engaged, and whose sustainability goals aren’t aligned with the company’s. How the office is occupied is just as important as how it was built out.   Engage your employees by more than just openly sharing your sustainability plan, but also explaining why certain measures were implemented (i.e. the waterless urinals will save 250k gallons of water this year).  If new technologies have been implemented, explain how to use them.  Reward employees who are proactive in helping the company achieve their sustainability goals.  Make it convenient and easy for employees to recycle.    Provide filtered tap water for employees rather than purchasing water bottles.

Developing a sustainable real estate strategy is really nothing more than developing a smart real estate strategy.  Don’t just “go green” for show, but be sincere in your approach and you will reap the benefits.  The truth is, a green office will yield happier employees while positively impacting your bottom line, so do it right.

Energy Management Apps Any Organization Can Afford

Ashley

By Ashley Halligan, an analyst at Software Advice

As environmental policy, benchmark reporting laws, and a general social awareness become more common practice in day-to-day business practice, new technologies are being designed and implemented by slews of organizations to measure their environmental performance and overall impact. Software developers are designing entire suites centered around benchmarking performance, suggesting upgrades, identifying operational inefficiencies, and even gamifying occupant behavior to encourage compliance with an organization’s goals.

Some organizations may not have the capital to immediately invest in such systems, but still want to get on board with responsible consumption–and identify inefficiencies before they become too problematic or expensive to overcome. For those organizations able to implement full suites dedicated to such features, that’s fantastic. For others, however, there’s a slew of applications seaping into the market, making similar tools available to literally any organization. Addressing everything from holistic energy audits, to measuring air quality, and even providing ENERGY STAR benchmarking, here are two affordable–and one free–application, all organizations should know about.

Recently awarded second place in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Apps for Energy contest, Melon Power was designed following the White House’s Green Button initiative–encouraging energy providers to make consumption data widely available–both residential and commercial–to their customers. At $500 per building, this Web-based application takes Green Button distributed data covering a 12-month benchmarking period, calculates an ENERGY STAR score, then reports that data to the EPA’s Portfolio Manager, in compliance with state laws that have been rolled out thus far.

Another powerful app–ecoInsight Mobile Audit for iPad–performs full energy audits of a building’s performance following user-inputted data collected while doing a thorough walk through. This free application is a powerful tool allowing operators to input operational measurements such as area, space, light wattage, etc. Once a walkthrough is complete, data is uploaded to ecoInsight’s site–where upgrades are suggested and customer proposals can be drafted.

Lastly, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning’s (ASHRAE) offers their HVAC ASHRAE 62.1-2010 for $19.99 which performs ventilation calculations based on user-entered data. This app distinguishes whether a building meets the industry-accepted ASHRAE standard for indoor air quality (IAQ) in commercial spaces. Additionally, given that IAQ is of importance in achieving certain LEED credits, this application can help an operator understand their current benchmark and if improvements need to be made to achieve the necessary credits.

These applications provide a great launching point for organizations wishing to assess and improve performance–whether for legal compliance, LEED certification–or simply, to demonstrate corporate social responsibility and a commitment to environmental performance. Read more about the applications and their features on the Software Advice blog: 3 Energy Management & Environmental Performance Apps Any Organization Can Afford. Feel free to reach out to me via ashley@softwareadvice.com with any suggestions or comments, or leave them below.


A Costly Time Bomb Could Be Hiding in Your Office Lease

The Restoration Clause is a seemingly harmless, fluffy little kitty that sleeps tucked away within an office lease… until you reach out to pet it and it jumps on your neck and claws your eyes out.

It is a legal obligation for a tenant to restore, at the landlord’s request, the premises back to the condition it was in before you moved in, and could be a very costly going away present to your landlord should they exercise their right.

Normally, a tenant can negotiate the teeth (or claws) out of this provision or have it deleted in its entirety, or many times the landlord won’t require the tenant to restore the space because the subsequent tenant will benefit from the leftover improvements.

So why are landlords now pushing harder for restoration in lease negotiations, and more frequently exercising this clause as leases expire?  Because there has been a 180° shift in how offices are being built out, and tenants are increasingly demanding “open plan” layouts rather than private office intensive build-outs.  Therefore, if the exiting tenant has landlord-centric restoration language in their lease and the new tenant wants an open office, you can be sure the landlord is going to stick that tenant with the cost of demolition.  That also means that if the incoming tenant desires an open plan and wants the landlord to tear down 30 perimeter private offices, the landlord is going to try its best to reserve their right to obligate that tenant to restore them at the end of their term if the new tenant doesn’t wants them back.

So what can a tenant do to protect themselves from this potential costly exposure?  First, fight hard in the initial lease negotiations to completely strike the restoration clause.  If the landlord won’t budge, then fall back on agreeing to restoration, but with the condition that the landlord must decide whether or not they’ll invoke their right BEFORE you conduct the work.  That way there, you’ll at least know before you spend the money whether or not you’ll be required to spend extra money (and effort) at the end of the term to restore your premises back to their original condition.  If the landlord won’t agree to those terms, then you’ll at least take out the guesswork and be in a better position to decide if this is still the right space for you and if the potential added expense is worth it.

If this little gem is already in your lease and you missed it because you weren’t represented by a real estate advisor, now’s a great time to call one up and have them conduct a lease review for you.  They’ll be able to provide you with their professional opinion of its implications, and may be able to provide a solution that could dampen or eliminate the exposure.