71–80 of 163 posts
Wolf Richter rips on this article pretty hard: https://wolfstreet.com/2023/06/12/ive-had-it-with-stupid-stu... > Park Hotels failed to pay off a $725 million interest-only non-recourse mortgage that matured last November. The mortgage was secured by two run-down mega-hotels in San Francisco, the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square and the 1,024-room Parc 55 San Francisco. > Park Hotels only owns the properti…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Turning upscale hotels into SROs isn’t a way to regain valuation.
Not SROs! Hotels should be fully compensated at commercial rate! Maybe slight discount for long term stay could be negotiated. Even $500 per night would be cheaper than current policy!
Wolf Richter rips on this article pretty hard: https://wolfstreet.com/2023/06/12/ive-had-it-with-stupid-stu... > Park Hotels failed to pay off a $725 million interest-only non-recourse mortgage that matured last November. The mortgage was secured by two run-down mega-hotels in San Francisco, the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square and the 1,024-room Parc 55 San Francisco. > Park Hotels only owns the properti…
> The hotels themselves are operated by other companies, and when Park Hotel defaults on a mortgage and walks away from the property, it means ownership of the property will change. That’s all it means for the hotel. The operating company remains the same. I'm curious about this part. Is that actually true? That sounds like the contract that the management company has is with the lender to begin with rather than Park…
But not my industry, just seems like it would be reckless from the outside.
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It likely felt safer than walking but there is a 0% chance that a 1.5 block walk through San Francisco was truly more dangerous than a 1.5 block car ride. It’s much more likely that neither was dangerous at all.
Feeling of danger is subjective, I can easily imagine a car ride along shit-infested sidewalks and deranged homeless people feels less dangerous (and icky) than walking.
I happened to be digging around hotel trade publications yesterday (before deciding that the PMS space is a crowded mess with too many incumbents and a nightmare of necessary integrations), and found this, which may back up the article somewhat: > The steepest RevPAR declines were seen [for the last week in May] in San Francisco (-15.6% to US$108.49) and Orlando (-12.8% to US$109.48). https://www.hotel-online.com/pre…
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A non-recourse loan means the lender is also “invested” in the property somewhat. That can be a good thing. A non-recourse interest only loan is a bit batshit however.
> A non-recourse interest only loan is a bit batshit however. Not as crazy as you think as that’s pretty much what the FHA does with consumer mortgages in non-recourse States. It’s not quite zero but I think it goes as low as 3.5% down. You can almost create this position synthetically by getting a non-recourse loan for the bulk of the purchase, and an unsecured loan (at a higher rate) for what would normally be the…
And they do get a bit spicy when home values decrease.
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A cruel experiment that will neither relieve suffering nor address its cause. America is insane.
Cruel yes. Better in the long run? Maybe. People need support. This support requires funding. This funding comes from taxes, which requires business operations and such. Business operations are impacted by perceptions of safety and cleanliness, which also requires funding and scales with the number of people who need support.
Has San Francisco become that bad? My father lives in the city, but I've never heard him complain about the state of things.
What does “that bad” even mean? Like in some kind of relative sense, people still live there and go about their lives. Some of the things that made it a popular and pleasant city are intact. In an absolute sense, if you were to compare SF with Zurich, you would conclude that it’s a lawless mad max anarchy.
I happened to be digging around hotel trade publications yesterday (before deciding that the PMS space is a crowded mess with too many incumbents and a nightmare of necessary integrations), and found this, which may back up the article somewhat: > The steepest RevPAR declines were seen [for the last week in May] in San Francisco (-15.6% to US$108.49) and Orlando (-12.8% to US$109.48). https://www.hotel-online.com/pre…
Don’t forget that the guy who bought a bunch of distressed real estate in Detroit is now a multi-billionaire, owns a few sports teams, and wrote a public FU letter to Lebron in comic sans…
Me thinks similar things are going to happen (if they're not already) to Portland. I grew up there and then worked on SW 5th Ave from 2013 to 2018 and loved it. Since then I've been in Germany working. I went back last year to see family and my old "stomping grounds" near my old office and other places that I'd love to go eat at and such were overrun with folks with substance abuse issues, homelessness, etc., and man…
It's only a feeling, and might be confirmation bias (I moved abroad as well) but it feels like more people I know are leaving the US entirely. Certainly more of my peer group than my parents' generation.