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Sources Tell Me Some Messed Up Stuff Is Happening in Commercial Real Estate

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31–40 of 74 posts

Re: Sources Tell Me Some Messed Up Stuff Is Happening in Commercial Real Estate

#31
post #3

Seems plausible. Vacancy rates of commercial property is ~~down~~ up significantly in major cities (SF, ATX, NYC, SEA, ...). What I want to know is: is it possible to find out how many of these commercial loans contain a "non-recourse" clause?

Not sure if UCC filings have this information in them, but that's one place I'd look first.

thanks I'll look into this. hopefully I don't have to make requests for each individual state.

Re: Sources Tell Me Some Messed Up Stuff Is Happening in Commercial Real Estate

#32

Why would a bank give a "non-recourse" loan for commercial property? Doesn't make sense to me.

commercial real estate was considered extremely safe, and competitive, so such deals were a way to build trust in commercial tenants and compete with other banks.

it was considered safe because a commercial tenants was likely trying to run a stable business and moving location is very expensive, so it was unlikely for a business to want to change location on a whim.

Re: Sources Tell Me Some Messed Up Stuff Is Happening in Commercial Real Estate

#33

Putting aside the nonsense of "absolutely disgusting", this is incredibly vague and exceedingly implausible. Critiquing: > They say the largest property companies in the US (they named names, I can’t) are raising huge amounts of money... if they stop paying the loan, and the bank gets the building back, the bank cannot sue them for the remainder of the loan. For this reason, banks generally do not loan more than what…

> banks generally do not loan more than what the building is worth.

The building's worth was often based on pre-pandemic rent expectations. Lots of buildings are very empty these days, even if they're still currently leased. I wonder what the rates of renewals will be on suites where practically nobody goes to.

Re: Sources Tell Me Some Messed Up Stuff Is Happening in Commercial Real Estate

#34

Putting aside the nonsense of "absolutely disgusting", this is incredibly vague and exceedingly implausible. Critiquing: > They say the largest property companies in the US (they named names, I can’t) are raising huge amounts of money... if they stop paying the loan, and the bank gets the building back, the bank cannot sue them for the remainder of the loan. For this reason, banks generally do not loan more than what…

> Banks aren't dumb, they're not going to fall for something as obvious as this.

Historical evidence suggests otherwise. Obvious bullshit like this was the root cause of the 2008 housing collapse. As long as your bank isn't the one sacrificial goat the government chooses to let fail you will be fine.

Re: Sources Tell Me Some Messed Up Stuff Is Happening in Commercial Real Estate

#35

Putting aside the nonsense of "absolutely disgusting", this is incredibly vague and exceedingly implausible. Critiquing: > They say the largest property companies in the US (they named names, I can’t) are raising huge amounts of money... if they stop paying the loan, and the bank gets the building back, the bank cannot sue them for the remainder of the loan. For this reason, banks generally do not loan more than what…

> banks generally do not loan more than what the building is worth. The building's worth was often based on pre-pandemic rent expectations. Lots of buildings are very empty these days, even if they're still currently leased. I wonder what the rates of renewals will be on suites where practically nobody goes to.

The article is talking about new loans, which are always going to be based on current valuations, not pre-pandemic ones.

Re: Sources Tell Me Some Messed Up Stuff Is Happening in Commercial Real Estate

#37
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you missed the part about a bail out. That's not a transfer of wealth from bankers to commercial real estate companies, it's a transfer of wealth from the tax payers to the real estate companies.

Wouldn't the government be taking an ownership stake in the banks at the banks' reduced market cap? How does the taxpayer lose out in this scenario?

What if there isn't positive equity left in the banks? What about opportunity cost? The money for the bail out likely needs to be borrowed, what about inflation and anemic economic growth due to interest costs?

Re: Sources Tell Me Some Messed Up Stuff Is Happening in Commercial Real Estate

#38

Putting aside the nonsense of "absolutely disgusting", this is incredibly vague and exceedingly implausible. Critiquing: > They say the largest property companies in the US (they named names, I can’t) are raising huge amounts of money... if they stop paying the loan, and the bank gets the building back, the bank cannot sue them for the remainder of the loan. For this reason, banks generally do not loan more than what…

They may not be idiots, but has the value of the buildings also plummeted? This could be akin to the toxic mortgage loans of years ago, just without the predatory lending that jacked up the values. Doesn't matter, too much, if the values just dropped naturally versus having been inflated by poor lending practices.

Re: Sources Tell Me Some Messed Up Stuff Is Happening in Commercial Real Estate

#39
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think bankers are lending their own money here? They’re lending yours and mine

But if the bank fails, the bank owners get wiped out.

But banks keep using the leverage of gigantic – but not fully admitted/accounted-for – de facto government subsidies to make destructively-reckless bets out of proportion to the nominal "bank owners" capital-at-risk.

So even if "the bank fails", there's been destructive speculative misallocation whose social costs can be far larger the nominal owners' losses.

Of course, the government also doesn't let the "systemically important banks" fail - so related politically-mobbed up interests don't even get "wiped out".

Re: Sources Tell Me Some Messed Up Stuff Is Happening in Commercial Real Estate

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> banks generally do not loan more than what the building is worth. The building's worth was often based on pre-pandemic rent expectations. Lots of buildings are very empty these days, even if they're still currently leased. I wonder what the rates of renewals will be on suites where practically nobody goes to.

The article is talking about new loans, which are always going to be based on current valuations, not pre-pandemic ones.

I don't think the claim is about new or future loans. The suggestion is that they're raising money via equity, not via new loans. They'd just be defaulting on their old loans.

But I agree that the story as a whole made very little sense.

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