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Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

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Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#211

Post by delaaxe »

samstave wrote: post #164
aresant wrote: post #82

This is such a fascinating cycle. Large pensions & sovereign wealth funds are so desperate for yield vs. low treasuries that they have pushed income producing commercial real estate values to all time highs. As a result these fund managers are then forced to take on larger risks to cover their liabilities by making larger portfolio allocations into public techs like Google, and privates like AirBNB & Uber. And this d…

Oh, if that's your sentiment, then you will LOVE this article from 2012: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-30/presenting-worlds-...

Not entirely sure how that relates to OP but interesting read anyway.

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#212

Post by rrdharan »

DogOnTheWeb wrote: post #94
CydeWeys wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a lot of the space has these beautiful antique wooden floors and the ceilings are held up gigantic wooden columns and beams. Most of the buildings on the site are over a century old and predate the modern construction methods that use reinforced concrete and steel I-beams. Contrast with 111 8th Ave, which was built contemporaneously with the Empire State Building (and in the same aesthetic). It uses reinforced co…

And who can forget the offices were once ovens for Nabisco.

There's a fun talk (given by Googler Greg Estern) on the history of 111 8th Ave here, for anyone more curious about the building:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVx59XOZtSA

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#213

Post by stale2002 »

hueving wrote: post #204
stale2002 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if, instead, these cities relax zoning laws, and allow supply to meet demand in the housing market? For every 1k Googlers who move to the city, the city should make damn sure that at least 1k apartments are built by developers.

It's not that simple. You can't add more land for 1000 more houses in the desirable areas of town. So people renting in the desirable houses are going to get forced out into the new apartments because the rich can outbid them for the good houses. People will still be pissed. There is no solution to bringing a ton of people into a small area of land that preserves each person renting the same place for the same price.…

There is absolutely a way to preserve everyone's ability to live in the place that they were living before for the same price.

The solution is to pick a small, 1 mile square area, and make THAT the high density, 40 story, skyscraper area.

A single high density zone could double the size of many cities, while still leaving hundreds of square miles of area for the low density people to live in the surrounding area.

Sure, it would be a comparatively high cost of living to live in the high density area, but that's fine, as it is an extra area that you can choose not to live in.

There are lots of people who love high density living. And I think it is completely fair to give high density dwellers a single square mile of no limits 40+ story tall buildings, for ever 100 miles of area that the low density living people can choose to live in.

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#214

Post by stale2002 »

mancerayder wrote: post #188
stale2002 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should be done is that cities should relax zoning laws, and allow more housing to be built in high demand areas. That way the city can fit everyone, cheaply.

I keep hearing this over and over in this forum, relax the code, change the zoning laws, that'll solve problems. How many of these folks actually live in a densely populated city? Zoning laws in Manhattan have a different source and downstream effect than some suburb of SF or LA, or some other city with housing cost issues. It's a huge topic of conversation, but I'll summarize it by offering a few items to ponder bef…

Yes, I do live in a high density city, San Francisco, and before that I lived in NYC for 2 years.

Manhattan is absolutely not dense enough for me. It has like a couple small areas, with 40 story buildings.

The skyscrapers are not high enough for me.

Here is how things should work. We should pick a single 1 mile square area, and in this area there are zero building height limits. Every single building in this area should be 50 stories tall or higher.

And then we should leave the surrounding area, hundreds of square miles, for the low density people to live in.

Yes, high density buildings are more expensive. But the actual cost of building the building is a small percentage of the total cost of living in an area. The REAL cost is caused by artifical land supply constraints.

You want lower density? Don't want to live in the very small, designated 50 story building area? Great! You can live in the 99% of the US landmass that is low density.

Us people who disagree, and and prefer higher density living should get at least freaking 1% of the land to do what we want with!

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#215

Post by tim333 »

jackgolding wrote: post #198
RestlessMind wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also means it is a great time to be able to produce value and be in control of its distribution (eg. start your startup and control the equity). People with lots of money are hungry for yields and will push your valuation higher and higher. See: cryptocurrencies (bitcoin etc) or sharing economy startups (uber, airbnb etc)

I've read about this a few time this year, do you think there will be some "tipping point" or crisis about these funds not being able to generate wealth?

Probably - interest rates rise a bit, the markets start going down rather than up, the pension funds end up needing topping up / bailing out. The economist Minsky had an interesting theory that in stable prosperous times people borrow to buy office blocks and the like until the degree of leverage makes the system unstable and it all goes wrong. Unless you have govt intervention to stop that which seems kind of absent in the west at the moment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsky_moment

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#216

Post by hueving »

stale2002 wrote: post #213
hueving wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. You can't add more land for 1000 more houses in the desirable areas of town. So people renting in the desirable houses are going to get forced out into the new apartments because the rich can outbid them for the good houses. People will still be pissed. There is no solution to bringing a ton of people into a small area of land that preserves each person renting the same place for the same price.…

There is absolutely a way to preserve everyone's ability to live in the place that they were living before for the same price. The solution is to pick a small, 1 mile square area, and make THAT the high density, 40 story, skyscraper area. A single high density zone could double the size of many cities, while still leaving hundreds of square miles of area for the low density people to live in the surrounding area. Sur…

That absolutely does not work. The prices of all of the homes anywhere near the high density area would sky rocket. Do you realize how much a single story house with a yard within a block of Chelsea Market in NYC would be worth?

High rise costs to build are several hundred per square foot, so the cost to the tenants would be higher. Why would anyone pay several times the cost of a house a block away for a spot in the high rise?

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#217

Post by rhizome »

rrdharan wrote: post #212
DogOnTheWeb wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who can forget the offices were once ovens for Nabisco.

There's a fun talk (given by Googler Greg Estern) on the history of 111 8th Ave here, for anyone more curious about the building: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVx59XOZtSA

That was great, thanks!

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#218

Post by dmix »

electricslpnsld wrote: post #79
ChuckMcM wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Fun historical note, IBM generated cash in its early days as Google and Apple do today, it bought a lot of real estate all around the world. In the 90's when it seemed liked it was doomed, it "saved itself" by selling off big chunks of that real estate. That gave the company operating capital without having to go to the equity markets or debt markets. Given the ups and downs of tech, it seems like a…

> it "saved itself" by selling off big chunks of that real estate Sounds like the losing end of a game of Monopoly!

You don't have to "save yourself" if your winning...

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#219

Post by dang »

matt4077 wrote: post #191
RestlessMind wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also means it is a great time to be able to produce value and be in control of its distribution (eg. start your startup and control the equity). People with lots of money are hungry for yields and will push your valuation higher and higher. See: cryptocurrencies (bitcoin etc) or sharing economy startups (uber, airbnb etc)

Yeah, Uber is perfect example of the superiority of startup founders to run later-stage companies. Can't wait to see where Kalanick takes it next. Edit: Now I'm wondering if I'm being downvoted by those who don't get the sarcasm, or by Kalanick himself.

Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#220

Post by quickthrower2 »

aresant wrote: post #82

This is such a fascinating cycle. Large pensions & sovereign wealth funds are so desperate for yield vs. low treasuries that they have pushed income producing commercial real estate values to all time highs. As a result these fund managers are then forced to take on larger risks to cover their liabilities by making larger portfolio allocations into public techs like Google, and privates like AirBNB & Uber. And this d…

... until the bubble pops, which seems like it might be happening now. I just sold most of my shares.
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