How does SF have both record office vacancy and a “Housing Shortage”?

This question has been covered quite a bit since the pandemic, and it's not unique to San Francisco.

In short, orgs need less office space than they did in the past, and commercial real estate is not easy to convert to residential. Plumbing, electrical, fire codes, and so on.

Plus, commercial landlords are used to sitting on vacant properties waiting for "whale" clients who will sign 10+yr leases.

Bad Zoning Policies.

That's the reason for the housing shortage in the first place.

The offices are unoccupied and can’t be lived in. The people who used to go to them now desire more space at home since they now spend much more time there. Big demand for residential square footage while companies are trying to shed their leases.

Of course people could be trying to leave the area entirely, but many people have ties and a life built and aren’t going anywhere.

There's a great NYT deep dive on why it's non-trivial to convert office space to housing:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...

HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35120366