Scope: San Francisco, Silicon Valley, East Bay, Los Angeles · Property type: Office
What Happened
San Francisco office leasing is the strongest California has seen in years, and the data agrees across firms.
Savills counted 3.9 million square feet leased in San Francisco in the third quarter, up 77.3% from 2.2 million a year earlier. Year to date it is 12.1 million square feet against 8.1 million for all of 2025. Availability fell to 27.2%, down 640 basis points from 33.6% a year ago, and sublease space dropped to 3.6 million square feet from 5.7 million. Savills names AI and technology firms as the key drivers and says tenants are increasingly pursuing blocks of 100,000 square feet or more.
Lee & Associates' list of the largest recent leases shows what that looks like: the City and County of San Francisco at 505,275 square feet, Google at 429,795 and Anthropic at 419,172.
The Bigger Picture
Vacancy numbers need a label. Kidder Mathews had San Francisco overall vacancy at 27.2% in the second quarter, with direct vacancy at 24.7%. Lee had it at 22.3%. Savills' 27.2% is availability, which is a different measure. They count different buildings, so none of them is wrong, and none of them can be averaged with another.
Now look away from the peninsula. Kidder had Silicon Valley office vacancy at 15.9% in the third quarter, down from 17.5% a year ago, with 2.9 million square feet leased, nearly double the year before. The East Bay is moving the other way: Cushman & Wakefield put Oakland's overall vacancy at 27.4% in the second quarter, with the Oakland CBD at a record 38.1%. Kidder had East Bay net absorption negative again in the third quarter.
Los Angeles is weaker still. Kidder counted 12.2 million square feet leased in the county year to date, down 37.2% from 19.4 million a year ago. Cushman & Wakefield had Downtown LA's CBD at 32.3% vacancy in the second quarter.
Labels: vacancy, availability and leasing figures are confirmed facts from each named firm, each on its own building set. Savills' outlook, that demand could broaden beyond AI, is a forecast. The reading of what it means is TenantScout analysis.
What It Means for Tenants
In San Francisco, the best space will go first. Large tenants chasing 100,000-square-foot blocks are competing for a short list of buildings. If you need a block that size, start earlier than you think you need to.
Elsewhere, you still have leverage. Oakland, the rest of the East Bay and downtown Los Angeles carry high vacancy and long deal cycles. Tenants there can ask for term flexibility and concessions.
Most deals are small. Kidder found about 3% of San Francisco deals were over 50,000 square feet and 60% were under 5,000 over the past six months. The headline leases are the exception.
The Broker Angle
A recovery that rests on a few industries is a prospecting map. The tenants driving San Francisco leasing are a short, nameable list. The tenants who will fill the next wave of space are not on it yet.
For landlord reps: the owners with space that will not suit a 100,000-square-foot AI tenant need a different list of likely occupiers. For tenant reps: a client leaving a high-vacancy submarket for San Francisco is competing with the biggest tech balance sheets in the country, so help them move first.
What We're Watching
- Whether demand broadens beyond AI. Savills expects it could. The next two quarters of deal sizes will show whether it has.
- Q3 reports from Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE and Lee for San Francisco and the East Bay, which had not published when we wrote this.
- East Bay lease expirations. Cushman & Wakefield names Kaiser, Clorox and Pandora/SiriusXM as tenants with leases expiring in coming years that are expected to downsize. That is a forecast, not a decision.
Sources: Savills, San Francisco Q3 2026 Office Market Report (Oct 1, 2026); Kidder Mathews office market research for San Francisco (Q2 2026), Silicon Valley, East Bay and Los Angeles (Q3 2026); Lee & Associates, San Francisco office Q2 2026; Cushman & Wakefield MarketBeat, Los Angeles and East Bay/Oakland office Q2 2026. Figures are by metro and building set as noted.