CEOs Discuss How Trump, Lurie Could Impact SF Real Estate

Debt markets, insurance woes, return-to-office and the new Trump and Lurie administrations.

All of the above are top-of-mind for top executives in the development industry, as they explained this week at Bisnow’s San Francisco 2025 CEO Market Kickoff event at the Intercontinental Hotel.

Farella Braun + Martel’s Brent Saldana, Wilson Meany’s Chris Meany, Swig’s Connor Kidd (Emily Landes/The Real Deal)

San Francisco moved in a moderate direction in the November election, which should be meaningful for developers worried about everything from clean and safe streets to lengthy entitlement timelines, said Wilson Meany CEO Chris Meany, who has worked on the 8,000-unit redevelopment of Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island with the city for the last two decades.

“It took 20 years to do the first thousand units — let’s hope we, working with the city, can get that timeline down a little bit,” he said, eliciting laughs from the ballroom full of about 150 attendees. “I would say the city has been a really, really good partner of late.”

Linda Mandolini, CEO of affordable housing developer Eden Housing, said she was “super optimistic” about Mayor Daniel Lurie’s appointees thus far, as well as the new administration’s seriousness about creating more housing in the city to help alleviate its homeless problems, given that Lurie formerly ran Tipping Point, a homelessness nonprofit.

HUD impact

On the federal level, Mandolini said she had “mixed emotions” about the next four years under President Donald Trump. On the positive side, she expected the re-authorization of the Trump tax plan to be a “huge opportunity” for organizations like hers that utilize tax credits to build affordable housing and she welcomed any reduction in bureaucratic headaches.

“I’m actually on committees that are making lists of regulations to get rid of right now,” she said.

On the negative side, she said the nomination of Scott Turner to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development is unlikely to lead to a “fabulous experience” for the low-income tenants she serves.

But fellow panelist Daryl Carter, CEO of multifamily developer Avanath Capital, said he was “bullish” about the Turner nomination, since he’s one of the only HUD heads to come from the development industry. Carter was also hopeful that the administration would push local housing authorities to improve — adding that his office still has to communicate with one behind-the-times housing authority via fax machine.

Office optimism

Swig CEO Connor Kidd said that there was optimism in the office sector due to possible mandates for local and federal workers to return to the workplace, along with big names in tech like Salesforce pushing in-office work. AI companies in particular seem enthused about working collaboratively not only within their own offices but with other nearby AI companies, the office and residential investor said.

The panelists pointed out that San Francisco also needs to create an environment that employees want to come back to: clean and safe streets, efficient public transit, lively retail and restaurants, and one-of-a-kind experiences.

“We just need to get bodies to come in and remember what it is about the city that’s so exciting,” said Graymark Capital CEO Brian Hecktman, a life science and R&D developer.

The rest of the city cannot recover without Downtown, the panelists agreed, since most of the city’s operating budget is generated there.

“If Downtown suffers, it’s going to bleed over to all of San Francisco,” Kidd said.

Kidd said that Downtown recently “feels good,” and that its streets appear cleaner today than they were pre-pandemic, but that it is still near-impossible to get debt on offices, which is one reason buildings have traded at such discounted values.

“I’ve had lenders and banks tell me that office is a four-letter word in their investment committee,” he said. “They don’t want to bring in an office building and basically get fired.”

Life science overbuild

It’s no easier to get debt to support new life science deals, said Hecktman, as “we’ve got an overbuilding of 4 million-plus square feet and the tenant demand went away.” But lenders do seem willing to work with “good owners” to help get them through the hard times, he added.

Carter of Avanath Capital said his multifamily firm has gained investment traction overseas. Despite San Francisco’s recent troubles, he said, it remains one of the few U.S. markets that European investors are interested in.

The panelists agreed that in addition to the capital markets, insurance had become one of the industry’s biggest issues in a relatively short period of time.

Mandolini said that getting insurance for apartment buildings that house those coming out of homelessness is particularly difficult and that Eden had been looking into creating an insurance captive, a form of self-insurance.

“I think it’s probably the only alternative that’s going to be left for us,” she said.

Carter said Avanath had already built a captive, with some capital raised by its multifamily investors, which lowered their insurance costs by 8 percent last year, after it went up 30 percent the year before.

Panelists agreed that the fires in Los Angeles would only make insurance more challenging, and would also increase construction costs. Whether or not it would lead some of those displaced to relocate to the Bay Area remains to be seen, they said, but the additional pressure the fires put on housing availability might lead to statewide benefits for developers.

“I think it will accelerate some of the development initiatives across the state and I think that will help us here,” Carter noted.