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Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

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331–340 of 527 posts

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#331
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sudden new squalor and economic catastrophe Billionaires suddenly losing their tenants is now economic catastrophe? Is this another variant of ‘too big to fail’? Those buildings won’t be going anywhere regardless of anything else.

What do you mean, billionaires? What about all the small businesses who used to get daily business from those office workers who bought coffee, lunch, drinks, and so forth? The hubris and myopia of the 'eat the rich' mentality is galling and a little depressing.

Small businesses are hurting everywhere, what can mayorships in large cities do any differently from those in small towns?

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d she’s based in SF why didn’t she contact the SF Fed?

Different Feds do different things. St Louis Fed I believe is strong in data analysis and forecasting.

This.

I looked at various online domains a few years back, and STL Fed publishes far more articles than the rest of the Federal Reserve branches. ~106k STL vs. 6--8k for others. federalreserve.gov publishes about 1/2 what stlouisfed.org does.

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/trackin...

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “reasonable taxes” in many places depend on large-scale transfers at the state/federal level from places like SF. But this pandemic is going to be crushing state and municipal budgets across the country, and many of the worst-hit places will be rural and exurban.

You seriously think that everywhere in America with reasonable tax rates is just getting fiscal transfers from SF?

Define "reasonable tax rates." I'll tell you this: states where there are very low taxes (e.g. no income taxes, low sales/other taxes) tend to be net takers when it comes to federal dollars: they get more from the federal government than their populations pay in taxes. States like California are net givers: their populations send more to the federal government than they get back.

As a bonus irony, the "taker" states also tend to house the most vociferously free-market/anti-government types.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#335
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a mass exodus of people from HCOL cities as jobs go virtual as well as a massive amount of office downsizing. Residential real estate may be okay in the cities receiving this exodus in the South, Midwest, Texas, Idaho, etc. but as for HCOL cities I’m just not sure. There may be enough demand to at least cushion it. Commercial will definitely be a bloodbath of epic proportions, especially in formerly hot mark…

Housing prices are actually already trending back upward in the bay area. I don't think there will really be that much of an exodus. Your company might let you retain most of your salary post-relocation but once you change jobs you'll have far fewer prospects. Also the internet doesn't help with timezone differences.

There's a lot of variation in that trend. Prices are up for the kinds of places you'd like to WFH indefinitely from (large detached houses in nice neighborhoods), and down for the kinds of places you wouldn't (shoebox studios downtown).

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#338
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like comments like this often lack perspective. Upstate NY, especially Buffalo and Rochester have plenty of things to do in them and far more than five restaurants. It strikes a nerve with me because in Massachusetts a similar sentiment is expressed by Boston-Cambridge folks about Lowell, Worcester, and other periphery cities. Its simply mot true that these places are devoid of culture snd cuisine and in the a…

As someone who moved from a large small city (300k residents, 100k students, 300k daily commuters) to San Francisco ... yeah the density is totally worth it. Back home we had restaurants and cuisine and all that. It wasn’t a wasteland. But SF has more high quality restaurants within a 20min walk of my apartment than my hometown had in total. Average restaurant quality is higher too. Just because there’s more competit…

I fear this is exaggeration. San Francisco has a few nice restaurants; but many, more affordable cities do just as well or better. The problem facing SF restaurants is the economics: it's so difficult to afford a place to live there, that kitchen staff definitely can not afford to do it. Combined with the relatively poor access story -- it's surrounded on 3 sides by water -- it means the core staffers have to be recruited from hours away, two hours or more. Restaurants definitely got worse in the last few years that I lived there (up until early this year).

There are exceptional cuisine resources in San Francisco, and amazing grocery stores, like Bi-Rite and Rainbow, but as a whole the situation neither benefits from the culinary community that it used to have (how many people have moved away) or from the kind of consumer that it used to have (well to-do kids just out of Stanford or a midwest school are not people who know what buffalo mozzarella is, or why you'd want to buy it, but their money rapidly became the only money that mattered).

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#339

Related: NYC commercial mortgage backed securities are going to crash https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX1uzbAOnXc Is it possible to short mortgage backed securities?

> Is it possible to short mortgage backed securities

Yes, you can buy a credit default swap. They might not be as underpriced as they were ahead of the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#340
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk of extreme naivety, why do failed real estate investments merit Fed support and attention? I thought they were just for maintaining a sound dollar and liquidity and the financial system, not charity for real estate kings.

The central component of the American Dream is that, once you're rich, the government will do everything in its power to make sure you remain rich.

Please describe that mechanism for me.
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