As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers • Hacker News Board

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#191

Post by lotsofpulp » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 1:19 PM UTC

hirsin wrote: post #16

Avicebron wrote: post #5

I know that commercial and residential building codes are different, but you would think converting them to residential units would fix this..

On top of the architectural challenges and efficacy of it, you have to contend with the terms of the bank loans that apply. Those are why the buildings "can't" lower rents to attract new business. If they sign a lease at a new lower rent it basically triggers a re-check of "can they repay the loan based on their rental income?", which comes back as "no". That trigger _doesn't_ occur if you just leave the building emp…

> If they sign a lease at a new lower rent it basically triggers a re-check of "can they repay the loan based on their rental income?", which comes back as "no". That trigger _doesn't_ occur if you just leave the building empty, with _no one_ paying rent, because your last mark to market rent was high enough.

Minimum DSCRs have long been used to monitor the current value of a property, and less income is less income.

https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/real-estate/commercial-ter...

> It's a shell game that eventually leads to the loan defaulting, but both the bank and the building owner are happy to pretend they can't see the train coming down the tracks at them.

This makes no sense. Why would a lender not want to keep tabs on their investment? What does shell game (a game where someone is intentionally deceived) even mean here?

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#192

Post by 0x1d7 » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #185

brookst wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do Democrats’ policies on health care, paid leave from work, unions, public funding of political campaigns, and public transit compare to European conservatives? If you’re a single-issue abortion voter, yes the US democrats tend to propose fetal viability (22 weeks or so) as the limit, while most of Europe is 12 weeks. UK and Netherlands are 24. But if you genuinely believe US democrats are wildly liberal, you mu…

> If you’re a single-issue abortion voter, yes the US democrats tend to propose fetal viability (22 weeks or so) as the limit No, the standard Democrat policy is to allow abortion on demand at any point prior to birth—40 weeks or so.

It’s fortunate we’re on HN to easily identify this comment as sarcasm, but can you imagine being so ignorant as to believe this? What kind of brainwashing is required to think one could get an “abortion on demand” up to birth?

Truly such a belief could only come from the lowest IQ amongst humanity.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#193

Post by aardvarkr » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 1:23 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #180

bombcar wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the key - residential real estate is based on tons of pricing effects, and appraisals are much more "feels" than "reals", if you will (how people feel about the area, how they feel about the tower the previous owner added, how they feel about the location, etc). Commercial real estate valuations are almost entirely a mathematical formula based on rents, current, whether they're collecting them or no .…

Residential real estate has a lot of sweetheart terms due to government subsidies, especially in the US. That is why you don’t see 30 year fixed rates anywhere else, and 0% down loans anywhere else. The DSCR equivalent for residential real estate is debt-to-income ratio. In a free market, it is conceivable that lenders offer lower interest rates for borrowers who periodically prove their DTI is sufficient. That is ba…

Residential real estate appraisals are done by under employed real estate agents. They’ll always find a way to justify the number that you paid, like during Covid when I bid $200k over asking for a $1M house, the appraiser didn’t bat an eye and got to that number. That was totally based on vibes.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#194

Post by aardvarkr » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #185

brookst wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do Democrats’ policies on health care, paid leave from work, unions, public funding of political campaigns, and public transit compare to European conservatives? If you’re a single-issue abortion voter, yes the US democrats tend to propose fetal viability (22 weeks or so) as the limit, while most of Europe is 12 weeks. UK and Netherlands are 24. But if you genuinely believe US democrats are wildly liberal, you mu…

> If you’re a single-issue abortion voter, yes the US democrats tend to propose fetal viability (22 weeks or so) as the limit No, the standard Democrat policy is to allow abortion on demand at any point prior to birth—40 weeks or so.

Prove it

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#195

Post by 0x1d7 » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 1:37 PM UTC

solid_fuel wrote: post #163

operatingthetan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice attempt at recovery but your comment still doesn't make sense. You were talking about Seattle, and then suggested Bellevue was "greener pastures." Not that Seattle was "greener pastures" from Bainbridge lol. Also you just admitted that you don't live in Seattle. So I rest my case.

It always plays out like this. "Downtown seattle is a war zone, if you don't live there you can't understand!" Then it turns out they live in Enumclaw.

It’s all love and horses in Enumclaw.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#196

Post by vessenes » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 1:37 PM UTC

solid_fuel wrote: post #163

operatingthetan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice attempt at recovery but your comment still doesn't make sense. You were talking about Seattle, and then suggested Bellevue was "greener pastures." Not that Seattle was "greener pastures" from Bainbridge lol. Also you just admitted that you don't live in Seattle. So I rest my case.

It always plays out like this. "Downtown seattle is a war zone, if you don't live there you can't understand!" Then it turns out they live in Enumclaw.

I mean mid Covid that wasn’t far off. The meth tent vibe in pioneer square was oppressive. You won’t convince me Seattle is a good walking city ever, but I agree it’s much better now and arguably the water front is the best it’s been ever. Still not good though.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#197

Post by MagicMoonlight » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 2:04 PM UTC

hnburnsy wrote: post #146

>Some commentators have blamed the downtown office apocalypse on Seattle’s taxes, antibusiness rhetoric and perceptions of public safety. That is very hand-wavy of the author, Seattle literally taxes gross receipts of every business that does over $100,000 [recently raised to $2 million], with no deduction for expenses, and on top of an employer paid payroll expense tax.

[dead]

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#198

Post by acdha » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

lokar wrote: post #78

beambot wrote: post #66

Yet rents won't drop -- the commercial mortgage covenants prevent landlords from dropping rental rates, so they'll just sit there fallow until the market recovers.

Or government pushes them to change. Regulators have tremendous power over banks.

My pet theory is that the best thing any city could do is having a strict vacancy tax in the downtown core, especially on retail space. Nothing makes a place feel dead like seeing boarded up restaurants or shops, and since the pandemic those have been lasting for years because the landlords don’t want to lower rates. There should be some grace period followed by tax rates ramping up so sharply that, say, they’d pay a food truck operator to use a storefront just to have something going on at every place on the block.

One of the things which helped the early web startup scene was that the amount of startup capital was a lot lower when you could get an old loft for an order of magnitude less than top-tier office space. Cheap money for most of the century skewed towards huge companies (or dreams of becoming one) but cities tend to benefit more from many small to medium sized businesses which aren’t trying to become Google.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#199

Post by randsorex » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #98

Schiendelman wrote: post #67

Seattle here, and a real estate nerd. This is almost entirely an artifact of the financial instruments used to pay for these buildings, regardless of any Seattle policy changes. The Seattle Times has always been a conservative rag, and their editorial board hates the new mayor, so they hit the "Seattle is dying" story as often as possible. They've got a long history of this whenever there's leadership they don't like…

Is there any more to this story than "extend and pretend" that's been going on for 6 years?

CRE also includes warehouses, multifamily apartments, retail, hotels, data centers, medical.

I think we kind of lucked out that we had the start of boom in 2023 instead of a recession.

The diversification has allowed the office space price to correct without a contagion.

As a general rule, any snappy memorable line like "extend and pretend" is almost always wrong and a distortion after awhile. The idea sticks around longer than it should because it is memorable, not because it has anything to do with reality.

Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers

#200

Post by lenocinor » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 2:28 PM UTC

seawolf874 wrote: post #61

vessenes wrote: post #36

If you haven't lived in Seattle, it's hard to understand the problem. It's multifaceted; business climate, generally poor quality of the city itself as a walking / working destination, extremely hostile to business city government, and greener pastures (literally) east across the bay, which happen to be closer to some very large headquarters. The die was largely cast when Amazon called Seattle's bluff during COVID an…

The city has a notorious open air drug market within 2 blocks of one of its main tourist attractions at Pike Place. Downtown is generally not a pleasant place to visit.

I live near Pike Place Market currently and have for years. There is no open air drug market anywhere nearby. Some people doing drugs, and occasionally dealing to each other, but nothing like what you’re describing.