Beware of banks and insurance companies with big office building portfolios

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One building, a 22-story glass and stone tower at 350 California Street, was worth around $300 million in 2019, according to office broker estimates.

That building now is for sale, with bids due soon. They are expected to come in at about $60 million, commercial real-estate brokers say. That’s an 80% decline in value in just four years.

This is how dire things have become in San Francisco, an extreme form of a challenge nationwide. Nearly every large U.S. city is struggling, to some degree, with reduced office-worker turnout since the pandemic spurred remote work. No market was hit harder than San Francisco, for reasons including its high costs, reliance on a tech industry quick to embrace hybrid work, and quality-of-life issues such as crime and homelessness.

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Stress on the office-building market across the U.S. is not an isolated problem, because of the effect on tax levies and nearby shops and the potential impact on the financial sector, especially regional banks that are big lenders on commercial real estate.

About $80 billion worth of loans backed by U.S. office buildings come due this year, according to data firm Trepp Inc. Most will need to be refinanced, at a time of higher interest rates and lower occupancy, threatening lenders with losses.

Wells Fargo & Co. recently said the volume of its office-building-backed loans that are classified as “nonaccrual”—meaning the bank no longer expects full interest and principal payment—jumped to $725 million in the first quarter from $186 million in the 2022 fourth quarter.

The office tower at 350 California, which CBRE is marketing, faces some specific challenges. The tower is about 75% vacant because the primary tenant, Union Bank, has mostly vacated it. Unfilled space is a big liability these days, in contrast to before the pandemic, when investors would often pay a premium for empty space because it meant a chance to raise rents.

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