Barry DiRaimondo, chief of SteelWave, a West Coast property developer that in the past half-century has partnering with many of the biggest names in commercial real estate, is looking for diamonds in the rough, distressed office properties located in the American city that many have given up on.
“I think over the next 12 to 18 months, you’re going to see a tsunami,” of distressed office properties, DiRaimondo said. Still, DiRaimondo expects the bulk of property ownership transfers in this boom-and-bust cycle to take place quietly, behind the scenes, often through a building’s debt changing hands. It’s a familiar playbook for veteran real-estate developers like SteelWave and its partners, especially when San Francisco office property values tumble and new loans remains expensive and hard to come by.
It has partnered with some of the biggest names in commercial real estate, including with Angelo Gordon & Co. in 2021 on two Silicon Valley office buildings, but also distressed debt titans that include Rialto Capital, and with Chenco, one of the largest Chinese-owned U.S. real-estate investment firms.
“Typically, what we do is buy something, tear it apart, put it back together, lease it, sell it,” DiRaimondo said.