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.”

The owner of Gorda by the Sea, the lone gas station for several miles in any direction from this remote, scenic hamlet in Big Sur, is charging $9.99 for a gallon of gas because, well, that’s as high as the digital numbers on the gas pumps allow.

“The software only goes to $10,” said Leo Flores, owner of the gas station and mini-market. “I know, sometimes someone wants to make a good story because of it, but we have to tell you why.”

As the lone gas station for at least 12 miles along Highway 1, the service station often prompts drivers to gasp or clutch their wallets at the sight of a $9.99 price tag for a gallon, but Flores insists he’s not trying to price-gouge his customers. In fact, he’s worried that if gas prices go much higher, it might put him out of business.

“People think you make money, but I’m not,” he said in an interview with The Times.

Motorists across the country have been griping since gasoline prices began to surge last month after the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which restricted the flow of oil from key oil-producing countries. Flores’ business is an example of how sky-rocketing fuel prices are having ripple effects throughout the economy.

The isolated gas station has been featured in the news in the past for its high prices, but Flores, who has owned the station for the last 30 years, said there’s a simple reason why the cost is so high.

“We run this place on generators,” he said. “The generators run on five to six gallons of gasoline every hour.”

It’s not just the gas station that runs on generators, he said. The small oceanside community surrounding the gas station — the mini-market, the cafe, the hotel and nearby cabins — is owned by Flores and runs on generators because there is no access to an outside electrical plant.

“When I explain why to people, they’re happy to pay what I ask them,” Flores said. “It costs me more to make my own electricity.”

According to AAA, as of Friday the national average cost of a gallon of regular gas is up to $4.09, and in California it’s $5.86. In Los Angeles County it’s even higher — about $6 a gallon. At gas stations around Gorda by the Sea, the average cost also sits at $6, according to AAA.

Flores said he has considered using solar panels to generate electricity, but the initial cost is high. To raise his gas prices any higher, he’d have to buy new pumps, an investment he’s not sure he could afford now.

High prices are not his only worry. The entire hamlet can operate only if Flores’ regular gasoline deliveries make it through on Highway 1 every two weeks.

When the highway shut down for three years because of landslides starting in 2023, he said, he struggled to get gas deliveries to run his generators and survived on only 10% to 20% of the business he normally sees. He barely made it, he said, until the highway reopening in January.

“It’s a big deal,” he said. “If the highway is closed in both directions, I’m screwed.”

Flores complained that no one pays attention to his struggles when Highway 1 closes, but it’s another story when gas prices spike.

“Why when the highway opens and I raise the price everyone points at me like I’m the bad guy?”

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.