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Office real estate crash will be so sharp, values unlikely to recover by 2040

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31–40 of 241 posts

Re: Office real estate crash will be so sharp, values unlikely to recover by 2040

#31

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.

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 being occupied.

Re: Office real estate crash will be so sharp, values unlikely to recover by 2040

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think most people fully grasp what is likely coming down the pike. Normalcy bias is a helluva drug.

meh, we have much more stable financial institutions in 2023 than 2008.

lol was that sarcasm? how many banks just failed including the bank most sv startups used and 16th largest? I think we'll adapt and hopefully build housing where offices used to be.

Re: Office real estate crash will be so sharp, values unlikely to recover by 2040

#33
post #27
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code requirements for housing are far more strict. One of the reasons you don't regularly see office building conversions is because homes require things like windows for each bedroom or at least one bathroom per home. While the bathrooms can be fixed with effort, windows mean a lot of office spaces would have empty cores as only the square footage near the outer edge of the building would be used. (This isn't my are…

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.

Re: Office real estate crash will be so sharp, values unlikely to recover by 2040

#34

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.

Lack of affordable housing is not a crisis for the ownership class.

[deleted]

Re: Office real estate crash will be so sharp, values unlikely to recover by 2040

#35
post #15

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.

Code requirements for housing are far more strict. One of the reasons you don't regularly see office building conversions is because homes require things like windows for each bedroom or at least one bathroom per home. While the bathrooms can be fixed with effort, windows mean a lot of office spaces would have empty cores as only the square footage near the outer edge of the building would be used. (This isn't my are…

The real issue is plumbing. You need more plumbing in residential real estate.

Many buildings are difficult to retrofit because they use a type of compressed concrete floor that cannot be safely drilled. Cheaper to demo.

Re: Office real estate crash will be so sharp, values unlikely to recover by 2040

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think most people fully grasp what is likely coming down the pike. Normalcy bias is a helluva drug.

meh, we have much more stable financial institutions in 2023 than 2008.

Are you joking or serious?

We have had multiple bank failures this year. And so many banks are holding large amounts of commercial real estate and also long term bonds they can't mark to market without suffering monster losses.

Re: Office real estate crash will be so sharp, values unlikely to recover by 2040

#37

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.

Lack of affordable housing is not a crisis for the ownership class.

[flagged]

Re: Office real estate crash will be so sharp, values unlikely to recover by 2040

#38

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.

Love this idea. Feels very reasonable, but most likely politically impossible so some Governor or someone with executive power and discretionary funds needs to just do it.

Re: Office real estate crash will be so sharp, values unlikely to recover by 2040

#40
post #27

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…

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.
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