41–50 of 241 posts
crazy idea: us govt scoops up all the office real estate at the crash and converts to low income housing for free. Solve two crisis at once, the obviously coming real estate crisis and the homeless crisis. All for the cost of a handful of F35s If only politicians had an iota of strategy.
This is why changing zoning laws is so important. These buildings and their underlying values can be saved by 'going condo' or conversion to smaller unit spaces for the purpose of housing so many who are struggling with massive increases to rent. Most rent does not increase because of increased asset expenses, it increases because of increased owner expenses and that quickly becomes a slippery slope in the face of ad…
This is not really how a lot of this works. Zoning is basically irrelevant - the problem is that the cost of converting an outmoded commercial building to residential is usually within the same order of magnitude as knocking it down and putting up something built for purpose. I would bet real money that there aren’t more than a handful of municipal governments that would die on the hill of maintaining existing zoning…
So? LA is a desert and requires the rest of the region to support their needs; which is really just their real estate values through sustained population growth - which would otherwise not happen without sucking H2O from everywhere else. Knock down the buildings and repurpose the materials for other areas then; though people will claim that's not "profitable" either so it will just be melted, crushed and buried instead of repurposed.
Converting buildings creates jobs! Isn't that the point of much of this, job creation so we can keep all these devious little beings busy? Jobs means they can afford the new constructs. Even at increased costs, how many of these buildings are paid off? How many change hands as a means of transferring debt, buying out equity and essentially playing a Fastowian shell game? The idea that, "we can't profit off that" is absurd given how much the governments of this country subsidize profitability for the people who are wrecking so much.
crazy idea: us govt scoops up all the office real estate at the crash and converts to low income housing for free. Solve two crisis at once, the obviously coming real estate crisis and the homeless crisis. All for the cost of a handful of F35s If only politicians had an iota of strategy.
Strategy requires a goal. Naively your goal might be to house more people.
NYC tried that with lots of projects built in the mid 20th century. True it provided apartments for a number of people during that time. However the projects were a terrible dangerous place to grown-up and many who grew up in them weren't able to enter mainstream society (and thus then subsequent generation requires even more such housing)
Meanwhile the areas near these projects are also dangerous and blighted - doing that at scale would condemn the entire downtown and send the city into a tax death spiral.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it is really easy to make boatloads of money as a government if you get off your ass and actually play the game. Step 1 -aquire land and property Step 2 - Build mass transit / metro and invest in the area, proterty price goes up 3x Step 3 - Rent out, or sell If some one refuses to sell land ar step 1, buld transit where you actually do buy land
This is a pyramid scheme that only works until you run out of undeveloped land. Also, this is already done in the form of suburban sprawl. You generate a bounded one off income but end up burdened with yearly maintenance obligations that never end. Instead of doing this, it would be far more logical to just charge for the services being provided in the form of a yearly fee proportional to the amount of land that is b…
The whole point of a pyramid scheme is they don't create value.
Developing the undeveloped is a productive contibution to the economy. Solving the housing crisis is a productive activity
> this is already done in the form of suburban sprawl
You have to create high-density housing, apartments, and local amenities. Pulling expensive underground rail tlinto a group of suburban homes is a waste
> You generate a bounded one off income
keep them and rent them out
crazy idea: us govt scoops up all the office real estate at the crash and converts to low income housing for free. Solve two crisis at once, the obviously coming real estate crisis and the homeless crisis. All for the cost of a handful of F35s If only politicians had an iota of strategy.
(archive: https://archive.ph/gQiQW but it's not as easy to read)
Takeway: old skyscrapers are easier to convert than new ones, because they tended toward home-like small offices.
A modern skyscraper had to have a hole punched in it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine the layout of a large office building. Some of them have the same footprint as an entire city block. The "empty cores" make up the majority of the interior of the building itself, it can't all be repurposed as storage areas. I feel like the notion "the govt should turn empty offices into housing!!" comes up on places like reddit _all_ the time, it takes very little explanation to show why it's not that simple…
ignoring code for a minute, for the most vulnerable, having a roof over their head is a serious challenge, and only getting worse as more and more people get kicked out onto the streets. Additionally, I am suggesting that this would be a government social service. USA is a deplorable example of how to view and treat homeless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those empty cores could be repurposed as storage areas though. Those don't require windows.
Imagine the layout of a large office building. Some of them have the same footprint as an entire city block. The "empty cores" make up the majority of the interior of the building itself, it can't all be repurposed as storage areas. I feel like the notion "the govt should turn empty offices into housing!!" comes up on places like reddit _all_ the time, it takes very little explanation to show why it's not that simple…
crazy idea: us govt scoops up all the office real estate at the crash and converts to low income housing for free. Solve two crisis at once, the obviously coming real estate crisis and the homeless crisis. All for the cost of a handful of F35s If only politicians had an iota of strategy.
Here's a good article on when it can be done, and how: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office... (archive: https://archive.ph/gQiQW but it's not as easy to read) Takeway: old skyscrapers are easier to convert than new ones, because they tended toward home-like small offices. A modern skyscraper had to have a hole punched in it.
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Ffortune.com%2F2023%2F0...
Current market prices for a lot of commercial real estate seems to be a ponzi scheme especially in the US. It is not in the interest of any of the players to decrease prices only the renters. Local government need higher prices as without the high property prices their property tax receipt will tank making them unable to meet their budgets. Banks need higher prices as they are highly leveraged and will be on the hook…
What has happened is that demand for office space has dropped dramatically.
The proper market reaction is to spend the money to convert these office spaces to some other use, perhaps residential.
Then these properties will more likely find tenants.
crazy idea: us govt scoops up all the office real estate at the crash and converts to low income housing for free. Solve two crisis at once, the obviously coming real estate crisis and the homeless crisis. All for the cost of a handful of F35s If only politicians had an iota of strategy.
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