As the office market bottoms out after a long fall, renters are swooping in to buy their own buildings.

Occupant businesses are seizing the opportunity to become owners, especially in downtown Los Angeles, where glittering high-rises have plummeted in value since occupancy dropped during the pandemic. It has never fully recovered, but investors believe the market has at least stabilized.

Among the latest to snag a skyscraper is fund manager Capital Group, which has agreed to pay about $210 million for the 55-story Bank of America Plaza atop Bunker Hill, where it has offices. Others choosing to buy over rent include Riot Games and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

“We knew the best landlord we could possibly have would be ourselves,” Capital Group Chief Executive Mike Gitlin said.

There are some good reasons tenants want to become landlords right now, Newmark property broker Kevin Shannon said, starting with timing.

“Everyone knows we’re near the bottom of this cycle, and it’s always good to buy near the bottom,” he said.

Downtown has suffered from an oversupply of office space since a building spree in the 1980s and early 1990s. The lack of rent-paying tenants that has driven down office values has become more acute since the pandemic. Nearly 40% of the office space in the financial district was available at the end of last year, according to CBRE. Overall vacancy downtown has climbed from 14% in 2019 to 34%.

Investors are finding deals to be had that include trophy properties such as San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid, a 48-story tower that has served as a symbol of the city since its completion in the 1970s. A European investment firm, Yoda PLC, recently paid around $690 million for the building, reflecting a deep loss for the previous owner, who had invested about $1 billion to buy and improve the famous skyscraper, according to CoStar.

A sign of the bottom of falling values is that office leasing levels seem to have stabilized, Shannon said.

“We’re far enough past COVID that office users are comfortable” and know how much space they’ll need going forward, he said.

Recent changes in federal tax laws regarding property depreciation benefits have added incentive, he said, and with office leasing improving around the country, lenders are looking more favorably on backing office purchases.

By owning their own buildings, white-shoe firms can maintain their properties in their own image.

Capital Group is already an anchor tenant in Bank of America Plaza, and it will consolidate other offices there after the sale closes.

“The best way to ensure a great environment in downtown L.A. is to create what we’re calling a vertical campus,” Gitlin said. “It was just this unique opportunity where the price was much lower than it had been historically, and it was for sale.”

Capital Group declined to confirm the reported $210-million sale price, but the building was last appraised in late 2024 at $212.5 million, down from $605 million 10 years earlier, according to Bloomberg.

Shannon said Capital Group paid about $150 per square foot for a property that would cost as much as $800 a foot to build at current costs. It will end up occupying the majority of the 1.4-million-square-foot building with 2,100 employees.

Owner-users have surged as key players in L.A.’s office market, now accounting for nearly half of all deals, real estate data provider CoStar said, while institutional investors’ share of purchases has fallen from 45% to 26%.

Office users from the public sector are among the buyers. The city of Los Angeles plans to buy a 35-story tower downtown for use by the Department of Water and Power.

The depressed office market in downtown Los Angeles has some renters looking to buy their own buildings.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Manulife U.S. Real Estate Investment Trust said this week that it would sell its high-rise at 865 S. Figueroa St. for $92.5 million pending approval from Los Angeles officials. It has an assessed value of $248 million.

The DWP confirmed in a statement that its negotiators will bring a proposal to the Board of Water and Power Commissioners next month to buy the Figueroa Street property. The polished red granite-clad building north of L.A. Live has been a prestigious corporate address since its completion in 1990.

“If approved, this acquisition would provide needed office space to support the expansion of LADWP’s workforce, consolidate operations and maintain the reliable delivery of water and power to the city of Los Angeles,” spokeswoman Renee A. Vazquez said.

Another major public buyer of a downtown office building was Los Angeles County, which in 2024 bought Gas Co. Tower for $200 million, a steep drop from its $632-million valuation in 2020. County officials said at the time that the foreclosure sale was too good a deal to pass up.

The county is gradually moving workers into the 55-story skyscraper at the base of Bunker Hill that was widely considered one of the city’s most desirable office buildings when it was completed in 1991.

A major renter takeover on the Westside happened in December, when video game giant Riot Games bought its five-building headquarters campus in the Sawtelle neighborhood for $150 million, one of the priciest Los Angeles office sales of the year.

The campus is home to a movie-studio-like environment that includes theaters and one of the largest commercial kitchens on the Westside, serving a wide range of fare that changes daily and is provided free to the company’s employees. Among the company’s well-known products is “League of Legends,” a multiplayer online battle arena video game played daily by millions of people around the world.

The colorful campus “unlocks the creative heart and spirit of Riot,” Chief Executive Dylan Jadeja said. “When the opportunity came up to own the property, we knew it made sense to invest for the long term. This allows us to continue cultivating an environment that reflects our mission and enables Rioters to do their life’s best work.”

The Sawtelle complex has been Riot Games’ global headquarters since 2015.

“It’s become far more than just an office for us,” Jadeja said. “This is where Rioters have pushed the boundaries of game development in service of delivering incredible games and experiences to players around the world.”

Victims of the January 2025 wildfires unhappy with how insurers have handled their claims have filed lawsuits, protested and complained to local and state officials.

This week, they got support from an unexpected ally: President Trump.

“It was brought to my attention that the Insurance Companies, in particular, State Farm, have been absolutely horrible to people that have been paying them large Premiums for years, only to find that when tragedy struck, these horrendous Companies were not there to help!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

He also asked U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin to give him a list of insurers that “acted swiftly, courageously, and bravely” to fulfill their legal obligation and another list of those that were “particularly bad.”

State Farm, California’s largest home insurer, is under investigation for how it has handled January 2025 wildfire claims. In a statement responding to the president’s post, it said it has received 13,700 claims, paid out $5.7 billion and expects total payments could reach $7 billion.

“Our leadership position in the California homeowners insurance marketplace means State Farm General Insurance Company — the State Farm company that provides homeowners insurance in California — insured more people impacted by this disaster than anyone else,” its statement read.

Tuesday’s post had its origins in a Feb. 4 visit that Zeldin and Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler made to the Los Angeles area, where they met with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger and Pacific Palisades fire victims, among others.

The visit was prompted by Trump’s criticism of the slow rebuilding process and by a Trump executive order allowing victims of the Los Angeles wildfires to rebuild without having to deal with “unnecessary, duplicative, or obstructive” permitting requirements.

At the time of the order, Bass dismissed it as a “meaningless political stunt,” saying the president has no authority over local permitting but could assist by speeding up Federal Emergency Management Agency funding.

The American Property Casualty Insurance Assn. industry trade group, in its response to Trump’s post, continued to point fingers at the government. It noted the fires were the third-worst natural disaster in American history in terms of insured losses, at $40 billion.

“Permitting can be a frustrating process, and it can always be improved,” it said in a statement. “Los Angeles has been approving permits three times faster than it was before the fire. However, permit issuance continues to lag.”

Barger, whose district includes the Eaton fire zone in and around Altadena, said this week that she defended the local permitting process to Zeldin. But said she also pointed out complaints about how insurers, and State Farm in particular, have handled claims.

“Many people feel that the insurance industry has let them down, and the number one company that we hear about is State Farm,” she said. “Obviously, Administrator Zeldin met with the president and outlined what I told him.”

Bass, who also spoke on the phone with Trump last month, issued a statement saying she “recently requested that the President intervene with the insurance companies to ensure they pay claims so that survivors can afford to rebuild.”

“I want to thank President Trump and EPA Administrator Zeldin for taking action and working alongside us to help survivors get the support they need and deserve,” she said.

A White House official said Friday that the EPA was working to produce the list of insurers “as quickly as possible for the president” and the “best way for insurance companies to help is to immediately pay out what they owe so victims can rebuild their lives.”

Construction crews rebuild homes that were destroyed in the Eaton fire in Altadena on March 20.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“Administrator Zeldin, on behalf of the president, is going to hold insurance companies accountable to the great people of California,” the official said.

The federal government has played a large role in the recovery, including leading the debris cleanup and, as of February, approving 12,600 Small Business Administration loans to fire victims totaling $3.2 billion.

However, a 1945 federal law, the McCarran-Ferguson Act, delegates authority to regulate the insurance industry primarily to individual states.

Joy Chen, executive director of Eaton Fire Survivor’s Network, which represents thousands of fire victims across Los Angeles, said her group believes the federal government has a larger role to play.

“President Trump has the opportunity to restore accountability to this broken system. Federal agencies have the tools to act,” said Chen, who has been sharply critical of State Farm’s claims practices and how California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has handled complaints against the company.

She specifically called for the Federal Trade Commission to examine “deceptive sales practices” that have left Americans underinsured and for the Department of Justice to investigate “industrywide claims practices that delay, deny or underpay payments owed to policyholders.”

Lara has defended his treatment of the company, noting regulators opened a probe of State Farm’s claims practices last year.

Martin Grace, a University of Iowa business professor and expert on insurance regulation, said that aside from the “bully pulpit” Trump exercised in his social media post, the federal government’s hands are largely tied.

“He can browbeat people, and Trump’s good at that. And I think the federal government, at one level, only has that. Now, Congress and the president together could say, ‘Listen, we don’t like what the states are allowing insurers to do, and we’re going to change the regulatory system,’” he said.

Grace noted that there was an insurance industry solvency crisis in the 1970s and 1980s that led to a 1990 Congressional report and federal pressure for improved state-level regulation, which was undertaken.

“Congress basically said, ‘Get your act together, or we’re going to take [regulation] back.’” And so the states got together and did a much better job on that,” he said.

Los Angeles attorney Richard Giller, who represents plaintiffs in lawsuits against insurers, said that the federal government could still take steps to improve the market.

Those might include establishing a federal reinsurance program that shares natural disaster risks with insurers, or covering the risk itself similarly to how the National Flood Insurance Program works.

“The catastrophe insurance industry in California is incredibly broken and needs some serious repair,” he said.

These highly skilled, highly educated foreign workers have been documenting the challenges of trying to build a career in the U.S. “If I don’t find a job, I have to leave the country.” “I sent out 907 applications.” “Have I ever truly relaxed in America?” They need an H-1B visa, which is given through a lottery system that allows U.S. companies to hire highly skilled international professionals for up to six years, in industries like tech and medicine. But the Trump administration has made changes to the program, requiring companies to pay a high fee and enforcing new rules that prioritize higher-paid foreign workers, in an effort to make more jobs available to Americans. This has forced some foreigners to rethink their career plans. “I think the U.S. is still the golden standard.” Wen-Hsing Huang came to the U.S. from Taiwan in 2022 for the tech scene, and was hired by Amazon on an H-1B visa. “I want to use my talents to change the world, and I think the United States was the best platform to do that.” Ananya Joshi came from India to attend a master’s program in Chicago in 2022. “So it was actually my my father’s dream that I had inherited because my father couldn’t go because of his financial situation.” Haina, a Chinese national, fell in love with the U.S. while studying in New York. She got her H-1B in 2022. “I remember there were a lot of companies, they would be able to sponsor.” Haina said she’s experienced a recent shift, where it has become harder to find companies that sponsor H-1B visas. “This time when I was job searching, I didn’t realize it could be a deal breaker. I just had my second interview of 2026, and it was a pretty short call.” (Recruiter) “I don’t think we’re eligible or able to do sponsorship for this role at the moment.” “They don’t even really get to know if I’m qualified, am I experienced, or anything. The decision is already made at that point.” “Please, please make sure that the company you’re about to work for has experience handling international hires.” Joshi said a start-up she interned with during grad school rescinded their promise to sponsor her H-1B visa. “Ask for everything in writing. And then there were jobs that were contract jobs. They would just reject me. They would only need people with a green card or a U.S. citizenship.” Even with an H-1B and a six-figure salary, Huang said he felt himself becoming anxious, as tech layoffs ramped up and Trump’s immigration policies kept changing. “I woke up every morning with this knot in my stomach, because my entire life depended on the policy I couldn’t control. The United States seems not very welcoming to immigrants that contribute to this country.” “The signals are, like, pretty clear at this point. They want to make this H-1B, is, like, risky and also, like, harder.” Hello, everyone.” Despite that, Haina says she’s determined to keep looking for a job until she’s forced to leave the country. “The pressure about where I’m going to be in the next of my career or, like, my life. I sort of like lost the ability to enjoy my life or just be happy.” “So I had to leave the U.S. Of course, I expanded my search beyond the U.S. Found a job in Germany.” Joshi packed up her life and started a new role with a European biotech firm in January. “I think I left at a good time, because there would have been more stress. I would have been stuck in a loop.” “It’s an endless cycle of anxiety.” After quitting his job at Amazon, Huang is now back in Taiwan, planning to launch his own company. “To bet on building an A.I. company that gives me complete control over my time, location and future. Staying in the United States is no longer the only way to achieve my American dream.”