Emeryville has been the home to many small businesses and startups that have grown into some of the most recognizable brands. Thanks to Eli Ceryak for providing us with an overview of the Emeryville commercial real estate market.

We have some great things in store for our business users who are contemplating a new home for their business.  We’ll be rolling out videos to help you better understand the markets you’re considering.  The best part is that these vids are coming to you from the experts themselves.  We’d like to thank Trent with Colliers in Oakland who contributed this guided tour of the Oakland, CA office space market.

This San Francisco space listing was recently added to Rofo.  Our office is located very close to this building (the home of Jack Falstaff Restaurant).  Knowing that this location and size are hard to come by, I would think this space would be appealing to many businesses trying to set up shop in the area.

This is certainly the conventional wisdom for what’s to come over the next couple of years. Today I saw an article on Reuters that sealed it for me.  Pictured above is Sam Zell (not exactly a household name) who’s Equity Office Properties was sold to a huge private equity firm just before the beginning of the mortgage meltdown.  Zell said the following:

“This is not a time to own commodity (office buildings) in the suburbs,” said Zell, speaking at the DLA Piper Global Real Estate Summit in Chicago. “If there’s going to be a diminution of demand for office space, it’s going to be out there.”

He went on to say that he thought the only the nicest downtown office buildings will fare okay.  Something to certainly keep an eye on if you’re planning to move your company within the next year.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve had a heavy diet of bad news from Wall Street.  Not necessarily about the markets but about large institutions evaporating.  Many people are asking how this effects commercial real estate and, specifically, the leasing market.  Well, the simple answer is that it does have a rippling effect but its difficult to predict when it will show up in asking rates.

I saw a story recently about the large chunks of sublease space that could potentially come on the market in San Francisco if the investment banks scale back their presence here.  And today I read a story in Time about the “financial madness”.  This was one of my favorite excerpts:

For an example in our backyard, consider Lehman Brothers. Lehman was so flush, or at least felt so flush, that in May 2007 it sublet 12 prime midtown-Manhattan floors of the Time & Life Building — across the street from Lehman headquarters — from Time Inc., which publishes this magazine. Lehman signed on for $350 million over 10 years. (It’s not clear what kind of hit, if any, Time Inc. will now face.)

OUCH!

So, if job growth continues to slow and large blocks of space come back on the market, landlords will eventually feel the pressure to lower rates to compete for business.  Given that the leasing markets have been healthy over the last couple of years who knows exactly when we’ll see that happen.

Today, Rofo reached a new milestone.  The 6,000th commercial space listing (for lease) in the Bay Area was added to the site. The 6,000th space is a 1,000 sqft retail space in Fremont.

With the market softening I expect that number to continue to rise at a good clip through the end of 2008 and into 2009 (many more subleases to be had).

I read one of the few silver lining stories today on the weakening US economy.  Reuters ran a story today about the commercial real estate leasing opportunities created by the fall out of many national retailers.  Starbucks was one of the bigger stories earlier in the year where they actually planned to shutter a bunch of stores.  That certainly does not bode well for the landlords - but that also really depends on the terms of lease.

The weakening overall retail demand has supposedly created opportunities for the Mom & Pops who typically compete and lose out to the chains.  This part makes sense.  The part that doesn’t make is that the weakening economy is likely having the same or similar impact on the Mom & Pops.  And when that happens these companies tend to retreat a little and refrain from making real estate commitments.  However, in soft markets you will see companies upgrade their space via subleases.

That all said, this company seems to be capitalizing…

I look forward to getting Rofo launched in that market so companies do not have to rely on calling on signs.

I’ll be participating in a discussion this week about Technology and the impact on Commercial Real Estate.  The event is being sponsored by the folks at First American Title Company www.ncs.firstam.com/norcal as part of the San Francisco Investment Forum.  This is obviously a very broad topic but in our market niche we’re seeing how user generated content and social interaction on Rofo are enabling businesses, brokers and landlords make relevant and timely connections.

The event starts at 11:30am on September 10 at Embarcadero 4, San Francisco.

We have to thank our friends at Officesnapshots.com who recently visited Rofo’s office to photograph our space. We have a sublease in which we’re sharing space with a couple of other internet companies. Beyond the typical benefits of subleasing office space - furniture, data and phone service, and shorter term flexibility - there are some softer benefits with many sublease/shared space arrangements. For us, we ended up in a large open area. This usually means more light and less of a claustrophobic space. Another benefit is the shared resources like conference rooms, a large break room and an employee lounge. Finally, if you’re lucky, you may end up in a space where you can exchange knowledge and ideas with another business/entrepreneur.

Rofo was picked up by Techcrunch this Monday. We were pleased with the story - not only the attention brought to our service but also their review of the site. Here’s an excerpt:

The story generated some heated discussion about the value of a site like Rofo. As with anything, the value will always be influenced by your perspective. Our perspective, as former commercial real estate brokers and as entrepreneurs, is that there’s demand from all stakeholders to have a better way to connect the demand and supply.