Commercial Inspections & Thermal Imaging Services in Marin County

Request a Proposal (707) 387-1936

Tell us the address and what the transaction needs, and we will do some research and send a proposal. Calls are returned within one business day.

A Fixed Supply of Old Buildings, Changing Use

Marin has very little developable land and a long, deliberate tradition of keeping it that way. Commercial supply is essentially fixed. The office market is about 7 million square feet, and at the end of 2025 Keegan & Coppin put vacancy at 21.4%, from roughly 10 to 13% in Corte Madera and Tiburon to 29.5% in Novato. Absorption was positive over the year, led by San Rafael, but the county also lost population faster than any other in the Bay Area.

The result is a market where the story is conversion rather than construction. Southern and central Marin saw record office sales and listings in 2025 as owners exited toward redevelopment: 13 office sales closed, against a historical average of four a year, and 13 buildings are listed for sale, where two to four a quarter was typical before COVID. Northern Marin is stabilizing through office-to-housing conversions and owner-user purchases. Low apartment vacancy (4.3%) and lower prices drew buyers back to multifamily, with sales up 20% in 2025. The approved redevelopment of Northgate Mall in San Rafael into housing and retail shows where the larger sites are heading.

Every one of those moves starts with an older building whose condition somebody has to establish: an owner-user buying a 1970s office building to occupy, an investor underwriting a conversion, a lender reserving against a roof and electrical service that were never replaced. That is the job of a commercial inspection and, where the deal needs a standard format, a property condition assessment.

What Each Part of the County Is Made Of

From the Petaluma River down to the Golden Gate.

San Rafael and Novato

The county's office, retail and light industrial core, and where most of its commercial square footage sits. San Rafael led the county's positive office absorption in 2025. Novato has the highest office vacancy in Marin, and both cities hold most of the county's small-bay flex and light industrial space. The flat roofs over that space are a natural fit for an infrared roof survey, and its older electrical service for electrical thermography.

Northern Marin is where conversions and owner-user purchases are stabilizing the market, and both depend on knowing what an older building needs before the price is fixed. East San Rafael and the canal area sit on low, filled ground at the bay edge. Novato's business parks include Bel Marin Keys, where light industrial and flex buildings sit on low, diked bayland east of Highway 101, and the former Hamilton Air Force Base, where site history makes a Phase 1 ESA worth considering.

Central Marin and the Ross Valley

The county's large shopping centers in Corte Madera, small downtowns in San Anselmo and Fairfax, and older storefronts along creeks that flood in large storms. Corte Madera and Tiburon hold the tightest office vacancy in the county.

Past water intrusion from Corte Madera Creek and its tributaries shows up as damaged finishes and mold, and small-town retail often carries accessibility barriers that were never addressed because nobody ever triggered a path-of-travel upgrade.

Southern Marin Waterfront

Waterfront offices, restaurants, marinas and boutique hospitality, where salt air works on everything metal. Parts of the Sausalito waterfront date to the Marinship yard, which built nearly 100 ships during the Second World War, and the older industrial and maker buildings there carry that history in their structure and their soil.

Mill Valley's soft-story ordinance reaches the older mixed-use stock downtown. Inns and small hotels with rated corridors carry an annual fire door inspection obligation, and wood-framed buildings along the shore deserve a close look at framing, decks and anything over or near the water.

West Marin

Small-scale commercial: inns, restaurants, general stores, agricultural and dairy buildings, most of them old, many of them wood, and all of them exposed to coastal weather. The San Andreas fault runs directly through the Olema Valley.

Buildings out here often run on private septic and well systems rather than a sewer district, and many sit next to federal parkland. The practical questions are envelope, framing, moisture and whatever the last several owners did without a permit.

Thermal Imaging in Marin County

Marin's buildings are older than most, and much of what goes wrong in an older building is invisible until it fails: water spreading under a flat roof, a connection overheating in an electrical service that was never replaced, moisture working into a wall. A thermal camera reads surface temperature, so those conditions show up as a temperature difference before they show up as damage. Every scan is performed and interpreted by our Infraspection Institute Certified Level III Thermographer, who is also a CCPIA Certified Commercial Property Inspector.

Original electrical service in 1960s and 1970s buildings, especially ahead of a conversion or a new tenant, is a good fit for electrical thermography under NFPA 70B, done with the equipment energized and running. Where a building has block walls, an infrared CMU wall inspection checks for missing grout and trapped moisture without opening the wall. And the flat roofs over office, retail and flex space in San Rafael, Corte Madera and Novato's business parks, including Bel Marin Keys and Hamilton, are a natural fit for an infrared roof survey, with impedance testing to confirm what the camera flags.

Older buildings also lose a lot through the envelope. Before a conversion or an energy retrofit, an infrared scan shows where insulation is missing or settled and where air and water are getting in around windows, storefronts and wall penetrations. Where a building has radiant floor heating or a suspected leak in a buried hot water line, the camera narrows the search before any concrete is cut. Our commercial infrared inspections cover all of it.

Where We Work in Marin County

We inspect commercial buildings across Marin County: San Rafael and Terra Linda; Novato, including Bel Marin Keys and the former Hamilton Field; Mill Valley, Sausalito and Tiburon in Southern Marin; Corte Madera, Larkspur and Greenbrae along Highway 101; Kentfield, San Anselmo and Fairfax in the Ross Valley; and out to Point Reyes Station in West Marin.

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Buying, Converting or Holding in Marin?

Tell us the address and what the transaction needs. We will do some research and send a proposal with no obligation.

Request a Proposal (707) 387-1936
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