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Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

freerange.city

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Re: Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

#211

Post by grebc »

nitwit005 wrote: post #205
grebc wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re stating the outcome - the property is worth less - without understanding how people buy/sell said property. And asking why others don’t agree? The article outlines the methods used for the most part to the best of my knowledge, as someone who owns and deals in this space. I think you need to lay out a better argument for why your thesis is the case when what happens in the real world mirrors what the article d…

You just don't have an answer, as you're still not answering.

I already intimated your assumptions are incorrect.

Markets clear at a price, pay that price. It’s just not the one you want.

Re: Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

#212

Post by goodpoint »

Animats wrote: post #100

Article is from 2025, and "extend and pretend" is coming unglued.[1] Extend and pretend was big around 2024.[2] The other side of this is that landlords hate to reduce rent to rent vacant spaces because their paying tenants will demand rent reductions or move. That can crash the rental market. A building half rented at rent X is more profitable than a building fully rented at rent 0.5 X. [1] https://propmodo.com/the-…

> That can crash the rental market

...as if it was a bad thing.

Re: Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

#213

Post by BrenBarn »

grebc wrote: post #207
BrenBarn wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people are fulfilling their obligations and most other people are not happy with the outcome, that usually means the definition of "obligations" is wrong.

Way to change the goal posts to suit.

Not sure what you mean. The goal is a good society. Allowing certain individuals to keep certain things they currently have was never any part of my goal. (I can't speak for others in the thread of course.)

Re: Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

#214

Post by onetokeoverthe »

canucker2016 wrote: post #139
makeitdouble wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Happy wife, happy life. Why wouldn't that happy cycle work with the husband ?

In the USA, women initiate divorce proceedings ~70% of the time. see https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220511-why-women-file...

[dead]

Re: Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

#215

Post by inigyou »

grebc wrote: post #197
inigyou wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something wrong with the structure of the market if people are holding assets they don't need that others could make better use of.

As stated earlier: it’s a free market and you’re free to make an offer of sale or lease to utilise the space.

It's actually not a free market.

Re: Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

#216

Post by gonzalohm »

goodpoint wrote: post #212
Animats wrote: post #100

Article is from 2025, and "extend and pretend" is coming unglued.[1] Extend and pretend was big around 2024.[2] The other side of this is that landlords hate to reduce rent to rent vacant spaces because their paying tenants will demand rent reductions or move. That can crash the rental market. A building half rented at rent X is more profitable than a building fully rented at rent 0.5 X. [1] https://propmodo.com/the-…

> That can crash the rental market ...as if it was a bad thing.

It's bad for one person only, the landlord, which happens to control the rent price

Re: Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

#217

Post by PaulHoule »

BrenBarn wrote: post #213
grebc wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to change the goal posts to suit.

Not sure what you mean. The goal is a good society. Allowing certain individuals to keep certain things they currently have was never any part of my goal. (I can't speak for others in the thread of course.)

I picture the banks and the landlords would do better in the long term too if the shops were full.

This is not Bluesky leftist "let's take Jeff Bezos' yacht so we can all have 15 minutes of health insurance" but rather "let's have more businesses in this town that can put capital to work, create jobs, create wealth and the kind of consumer choice that Ralph Nader and Ludwig von Mises both agreed on."

Re: Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

#218

Post by bluGill »

BrenBarn wrote: post #203
bluGill wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a better option? Before your answer, remember it sometimes really is the case that the economy is down and in two years things will recover and everything will rent out again. Your answer needs to smooth that out.

Smooth it out for who? If the answer is "the person who owns a $20 million building" then my answer is "I don't care".

Not caring is why we are in this place where rent doesn't go down. Now, maybe it is really is not your problem, but be aware that it is a problem for someone and in turn, you can raise your costs if you are shopping at those businesses. If financials doesn't pencil out, then either the business closes or they raise prices.

Re: Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

#219

Post by Nemi »

senordevnyc wrote: post #166
rossdavidh wrote: post #157

Oh my goodness, thank you. My wife had to move her store in 2020 in the midst of lockdown; you'd think rents would have been low, but no. Since then, many of the places that wouldn't lower the rent then, have sat empty ever since. This is in Austin, TX, a town that has had a healthy economy during that entire time. Weirder still, many of them were on the market, theoretically for rent, but if you called them up it tu…

Wait, were they not available at $x, or not available for < $x? Because if it’s the former, then this article doesn’t really explain your experience, right?

Another thing that I read about on this topic was that once a land lord has gotten into a groove of extend and pretend they lower their costs and cut out the overhead of property management. This means that if they took on one tenant they would have to ramp up property management costs (and potentially refurb/improvement costs) and they are not willing to do that, so you end up with the situation where you can't rent a property even if you want to.

Re: Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? (2025)

#220

Post by prepend »

Grombobulous wrote: post #162
limagnolia wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the US does, its called property tax. Or in some cases, land value taxes.

That doesn’t work very well in practice because a half vacant commercial property has lower property value than a full one. There are buildings that seem to purposefully keep commercial space vacant to devalue the building: https://therealdeal.com/chicago/2021/09/10/trump-gets-anothe...

Property tax isn’t based on vacancy rate, it’s based on property value.

The article writes a bit about property value being based on rents.

So a completely rented building pays the same property tax as an empty building with no renters.

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