Where Southern California Real Estate Is Growing – and Who You’ll Need to Run It

 

Before you write the next job description for a Southern California portfolio, look closely at what the asset actually needs. An older office tower losing tenants, a stabilized apartment community and a new defense campus require different skillsets to maximize NOI. 

The regional market makes that distinction sharper than usual. Office, multifamily, retail and industrial are each moving at their own pace, and new advanced manufacturing projects are adding a different kind of demand. Here’s what the latest data shows, and what it means for your next hire. 

Older office: hire for retention and repositioning 

Los Angeles office vacancy remains high. Depending on how each brokerage measures the market, between 17.7% (Kidder Mathews, including sublease space) and 23.2% (Cushman & Wakefield) of office space was vacant in Q3 2026. 

The pressure isn’t spread evenly. Savills reports that available space is shrinking fastest in premium submarkets such as Century City, Beverly Hills and El Segundo, while older buildings, particularly Downtown, continue to lose ground as tenants move to higher-quality space. In Century City, JMB Realty’s 37-story Century City Center is nearing completion and largely preleased, with CAA taking about 400,000 square feet for its headquarters alongside commitments from Clearlake Capital Group and Sidley Austin. 

If you own an older building, look for a property manager who has kept tenants in a half-empty building before. That experience shows up in small decisions: which capital projects actually help win renewals, and how to stretch a tight budget across an HVAC upgrade and a lobby refresh. Repositioning experience on a resume is worth a closer look. 

A new premium building needs someone else entirely. You want a manager who can take a tower from construction handover through tenant move-ins, while delivering the level of service the rent implies. 

Multifamily and retail: steady markets, growing pipelines 

Apartments and retail are holding steady rather than surging. LA multifamily vacancy was 5.4% in Q3 2026, with average asking rents up just 0.6% year over year, according to Kidder Mathews. Retail vacancy edged up to 5.7%, though occupancy losses so far this year are far smaller than in 2025. 

In a flat market, renewals do more of the work. Community and property managers with a track record of resident retention and cost control are valuable here. 

The construction pipeline adds a second need. More than 24,000 apartments were under construction across Los Angeles at the end of the quarter, according to Kidder Mathews. Each new community will need a team that can handle lease-up, from leasing professionals and a community manager to maintenance technicians, and then settle into steady operations. 

Industrial: know what happens inside the building 

Industrial is harder to read. CBRE and Savills both recorded falling vacancy and positive net absorption in Q3 2026, while Cushman & Wakefield and Kidder Mathews saw vacancy tick up after a slower quarter. Taken together, the market looks to be stabilizing after a long rent correction: Cushman & Wakefield reports year-to-date leasing running 6.5% ahead of 2025, and asking rents rising for the first time since 2023. 

For hiring, the word “industrial” tells you very little. A distribution warehouse needs a maintenance lead who keeps docks, roofs and fire systems in order and responds quickly to tenants. An advanced manufacturing tenant needs engineers who understand power distribution, controls and production-critical systems. Decide which one you’re hiring for before the search starts. 

Defense and advanced manufacturing: a new kind of demand 

The strongest growth is clustering around Long Beach. Anduril has announced a $1 billion, 1.18 million-square-foot campus spanning Long Beach and Lakewood, combining offices with research and development and prototype manufacturing space, due to open in mid-2027. Divergent has announced its second factory, a 430,000-square-foot facility in Long Beach. 

When facilities like these open, they need facilities leaders who are comfortable with power, HVAC, controls, commissioning and production schedules. That combination is specialized, so it pays to look beyond commercial real estate. Manufacturing, healthcare and data center operations can all produce candidates with relevant experience, depending on each facility’s technical requirements. 

Market data tells you where activity is moving. It won’t tell you who is available, what would persuade them to move or which other sectors are competing for the same people. A few questions help close that gap: 

• What does the asset need right now? A turnaround, steady operations, lease-up and a technical expansion each call for a different hire. 

• Is the brief realistic? Test the scope, budget and timing against who is actually available before the role goes live. 

• Where else could the right person be working today? Healthcare, data centers and manufacturing can widen a thin talent pool. 

• When do they need to start? For new buildings, bringing operating leads in before completion avoids a scramble at handover. 

Southern California’s new and repositioned buildings will be judged on how well they run. The team that runs them deserves the same planning as the building itself. 

Planning real estate, facilities or property management hires? Speak with Core Talent US about the experience your portfolio needs.