141–150 of 527 posts
If this trend continues, I wonder if these office spaces can be converted to apartments. SF is in desperate need of living space
Ive been told in a lot if cases this is virtually impossible due to cost and structural constraints of office construction vs residential... notably ceiling heights, plumbing and floor plans are poorly designed for residential conversion.
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(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24890196 .)
How do subthreads work? I assume they're just hidden due to divisiveness / flamewar risk?
A bunch of chair warmers and button pushers moved to Tahoe or Mazzula, so what? It is nice to have a huge house and some land, but city living is are a tradeoff. Living around a bunch of people means food, entertainment, and social options that simply can't be had from a Zoom room.
If CRE prices drop, the offices will still get filled to the brim with new companies in a couple of years. Will there be some CRE bankruptcies? Certainly. But has anyone looked at on time payments of office REITs? Keep an eye on those for dividend cuts as a predictor.
Thinking of starting a business here? I'll beat my drum once again -- it has never been a better time to setup shop here. Take risks when others panic.
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You seem to be hinting at interesting things here but its hard to follow, the writing feels like a disjointed short hand with unstated context that requires experience to unpack. What are "those empty Walgreens shelves", not having been there I don't know what you mean. Further, SF was not unique in experiencing that. I experienced it in North Carolina and Utah. What do you mean "squalor that is not that real?", what…
I agree, linguistically that comment borders on gibberish.
People come in & take whatever they want because they know Walgreen's has a "no contact" policy (they won't stop you). They shoplift everything. And Walgreen's doesn't rush to re-stock.
There are a lot of homeless and drug addicts in that area, but I don't know firsthand if they're the shoplifters.
I spoke to a police sergeant at the Walgreen's at Broadway and Polk, and he said it's pretty bad, and that even he has a hard time getting the shoplifters to stop.
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Where does that money come from? QE & more government debt?
I think it's instructive to set aside money for a minute and think about things in real terms: if we shut things down, then which parts of the economy won't be functioning and what is the cost of that. For example: suppose hospitality workers are paid to stay at home. How is that paid for? Well actually it's entiely paid for by people having fewer of the hospitality experiences that they are used to. It is obvious wh…
I see the problem as a lack of agility of the economy. The hospitality works could have another job, but those jobs can't get created fast enough. How can they get paid by other people rather than the government.
Another question is post-covid do we want to ramp up consumption again. Do we need people flying to hotels to meet up, or will Zoom do? And if Zoom will do, what of the hospitality industry (already taking a stab wound from Airbnb etc.).
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This has happened every few years in corporate real estate for the past half century (Sam Zell's biography is a good take). Every. Single. Time. Valuations too high. Debt too high. Equity too low. I am pretty cynical because I have read a bit too much history and seen this so many times working in investment management but...so what? Some rich people lose a ton of money...okay? Capitalism has losers. You lose. Also,…
Point taken, but I don't think you're taking into account the monumental impact of COVID-19. We've never had such a large, immediate, and impactful shift to work culture. Working remote was still a niche idea at the beginning of 2020, now it's ubiquitous. That has never happened before.
If this trend continues, I wonder if these office spaces can be converted to apartments. SF is in desperate need of living space
For those that think this is the end of San Francisco, take a deep breath. The empty office space and worries about expiring leases only applies to companies that can't work remote. SF has a huge service industry, swaths of culture, and some pretty nice weather. A bunch of chair warmers and button pushers moved to Tahoe or Mazzula, so what? It is nice to have a huge house and some land, but city living is are a trade…
A close relative of mine is a top real estate appraiser based in San Francisco, and she's terrified about what happens in Q2 2021, when leases will start terminating en masse. She's had a call with the St. Louis Fed, as they're trying to get an idea of what this will look like. She thinks it will be a bloodbath, and deal a death blow to corporate real estate (and other capital markets by extension).
This is a good point. I explained it to my mother with an analogy to a cruise ship heading toward shore at full speed. Everyone knows this means the ship will run aground, but few appreciate that given the mass (and thus momentum) the ship would travel far inland just scraping across the ground. The coming economic response to the pandemic has the potential to be like that, basically 10x the 2009 "great recession" an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has happened every few years in corporate real estate for the past half century (Sam Zell's biography is a good take). Every. Single. Time. Valuations too high. Debt too high. Equity too low. I am pretty cynical because I have read a bit too much history and seen this so many times working in investment management but...so what? Some rich people lose a ton of money...okay? Capitalism has losers. You lose. Also,…
Point taken, but I don't think you're taking into account the monumental impact of COVID-19. We've never had such a large, immediate, and impactful shift to work culture. Working remote was still a niche idea at the beginning of 2020, now it's ubiquitous. That has never happened before.