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Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

bloomberg.com

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Re: Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

#101

Post by rightbyte »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #79
makeitdouble wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Otherwise it just gets reflected in the price This is one of my nightmares. What if we allowed people to live in basically confinment cells and they have no choice as they're broke af or the gov or their companies assigns them one in a relocation program. My gut feeling is that the social consequences would be subtle and easily overlooked by officials but widespread and long lasting. > Houses in the suburbs often c…

> What if we allowed people to live in basically confinment cells and they have no choice as they're broke af or the gov or their companies assigns them one in a relocation program. But they'd still have the same choice they have now. Pay more for something better. Right now their choice is to pay more, potentially sacrificing something even worse, or to be homeless. Presumably the small living space is better than h…

> But they'd still have the same choice they have now. Pay more for something better.

It doesn't work like that. With cheap cells the low wages will adjust since some people are prepared to live in those, underbidding people that want to be able to see the sun in a race to the bottom.

Re: Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

#102

Post by refurb »

nox101 wrote: post #84
refurb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like designing a city for 20-something singles whose highest priorities are nightlife and dining. What about the rest of us?

I'm pretty sure much of the world disagrees with that assessment. Lots 30s and 40 somethings with children and lots of older people living in walkable cities. The problem in the USA is that there's very little of this style of living. It's all tract housing and suburban style apartment complexes and almost no walkable cities. I'd be nice to have more of them since we already have plenty of suburbs and traffic.

For a lot of the world that’s the only affordable housing. Single family homes are just out of reach financially.

I know in Asian, many (but not all) of the people I know in apartments would love a house but can’t afford it.

Re: Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

#103

Post by wizerdrobe »

xyst wrote: post #91

> The magnitude of the crisis is up for debate. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week that losses in commercial real estate are a worry, but that the situation is “manageable,” a similar sentiment expressed by Fed Chair Jerome Powell in a 60 Minutes interview on Feb. 4. Others have more dire outlooks, with real estate investor Barry Sternlicht predicting $1 trillion in office losses. Fuck man. Another ‘08 si…

Unto itself, would losses in commercial real estate cross over into residential or would it require a broader market slump a la ‘08?

Re: Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

#104

Post by brandall10 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #69
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's still possible to convert to houses, but that makes for ridiculously small liveable areas compared to the whole floor surface. This is only a problem if it's prohibited by zoning. Otherwise it just gets reflected in the price. Houses in the suburbs often contain a large amount of space with no windows, i.e. a basement the size of the entire first floor, and no one objects because it can be used for storage or…

> Otherwise it just gets reflected in the price This is one of my nightmares. What if we allowed people to live in basically confinment cells and they have no choice as they're broke af or the gov or their companies assigns them one in a relocation program. My gut feeling is that the social consequences would be subtle and easily overlooked by officials but widespread and long lasting. > Houses in the suburbs often c…

I've seen a number of these types of conversions in CA and NYC. They're usually sizable lofts, some with considerably more window area than others. The smaller units tend to go more deep than wide but they still have access to natural light in some part.

Re: Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

#105

Post by ryandrake »

thereisnospork wrote: post #92
candiodari wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can result in a race to the bottom, is the argument against it. If we allowed people to live in "capsule hotels" for example.

The problem with the argument is that capsule apartments aren't the bottom - living on the street is. So as a society we've skipped right past bad to horrid while clapping ourselves on the back as if we're doing the 'undesirables' a favor. Abhorrent.

If capsule housing or cramped tenements were allowed, economics would push already-housed people down into them, rather than raise unhoused people up into them. Everything is a race to the bottom.

For example, let’s say the worst homes in your area legally allowed to be occupied are currently renting for $500/mo. Now capsule housing suddenly becomes legal. They’re not going to magically cost less. Landlords already know the poorest people will at least pay $500/mo, so the capsules will cost that, and the previous worst housing would rise to $750/mo or something.

Re: Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

#106

Post by ryandrake »

refurb wrote: post #102
nox101 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure much of the world disagrees with that assessment. Lots 30s and 40 somethings with children and lots of older people living in walkable cities. The problem in the USA is that there's very little of this style of living. It's all tract housing and suburban style apartment complexes and almost no walkable cities. I'd be nice to have more of them since we already have plenty of suburbs and traffic.

For a lot of the world that’s the only affordable housing. Single family homes are just out of reach financially. I know in Asian, many (but not all) of the people I know in apartments would love a house but can’t afford it.

I agree. Different people like different environments and living arrangements. One size does not fit all. Personally, I like suburban single family home living, and I would never go back to dense urban apartment living unless I was forced to at gunpoint. Options are good.

Re: Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

#107

Post by hackerlight »

ryandrake wrote: post #105
thereisnospork wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the argument is that capsule apartments aren't the bottom - living on the street is. So as a society we've skipped right past bad to horrid while clapping ourselves on the back as if we're doing the 'undesirables' a favor. Abhorrent.

If capsule housing or cramped tenements were allowed, economics would push already-housed people down into them, rather than raise unhoused people up into them. Everything is a race to the bottom. For example, let’s say the worst homes in your area legally allowed to be occupied are currently renting for $500/mo. Now capsule housing suddenly becomes legal. They’re not going to magically cost less. Landlords already k…

Your conclusion rests on a likely false assumption that things remain expensive in a world where more housing isn't illegal. If capsule (and indeed, all) housing is no longer illegal, the price of everything falls. Regular one-bedroom unit rental will become affordable for the majority of people, so there will be no desire to downgrade to a capsule home. This is not Hong Kong where land is so scarce that even building vertically is insufficient to keep rents low.

A small number of people who have the lowest incomes will probably downgrade to capsule homes, instead of the status quo of living far away from their work. So they'll make a conscious decision to trade-off living space for a shorter commute, and who are you to tell them that's not in their best interest? Forced hour-long commutes is bad for people's wellbeing, which is what's happening in the status quo.

This discussion is a bit of a tangent because most housing proponents don't care if capsule homes are illegal. All they want is for normal units to not be illegal. That will get you 95% of the way there, capsule homes is nothing more than a theoretical curiosity outside of extremely dense countries like HK.

Re: Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

#108

Post by [deleted] »

makeitdouble wrote: post #27
keiferski wrote: post #15

Only speaking from my personal travel experiences, not any hard data, but: I feel like this issue is nearly non-existent in places with mixed use zoning. If the office values go down in a place with equal amounts of housing, they are repurposed as new apartments. The problem is when the office architecture isn’t interchangeable with apartment architecture, which usually happens because certain areas are zoned as offi…

There might be many issues with the gap in construction standards for offices and housings. A very dumb one: windows are required for houses, where offices can get away with huge open spaces holding a central hub of indoor areas. It's still possible to convert to houses, but that makes for ridiculously small liveable areas compared to the whole floor surface. Then plumbing, evacuation paths etc. can all be solved by…

[deleted]

Re: Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

#109

Post by saiya-jin »

xyst wrote: post #93
jgilias wrote: post #85

> The plunging US values are being felt around the world because properties in top-tier American cities were once magnets for global investment. Offices were seen as super safe bets backed by high-quality assets with long-term leases and rising rents. Here we go again.

This is why I suspect return to office (RTO) was pushed so hard. The invisible hands pulling the strings behind these MBA flunkies installed at many companies are whispering in their ears. “We need to offload bad debt. Help us keep the con going just a bit longer so we can offload the toxic assets from the books to another firm or government”

follow the money (almost) never fails

Re: Commercial property deals in the US are starting to pick up at deep discounts

#110

Post by mschuster91 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #90
mschuster91 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My gut feeling is that the social consequences would be subtle and easily overlooked by officials but widespread and long lasting. Easily overlooked? Hell no. That would be part of the plan from the start: punish the undesirables for being poor, remind them of their low status in society every single day. The requirement that rooms designated for living need adequate access to sunlight came out of the desire to eli…

> That would be part of the plan from the start: punish the undesirables for being poor, remind them of their low status in society every single day. As opposed to now, when they have to live under an overpass because they can't afford rent? > The requirement that rooms designated for living need adequate access to sunlight came out of the desire to eliminate such discrimination. It came out of a desire to force "und…

The solution to homeless people is to give them affordable, quality housing. Not to just move them from a shitty situation into one that's just marginally better.
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