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San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

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Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#401

Post by fakethenews2022 »

fakethenews2022 wrote: post #383
LatteLazy wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cities need social services to work, because of the density of people. It is a problem when my neighbour is crazy and screams for 18h a day when we live on top of each other in a city. It isn't when we live in the middle of no where and are separated by 50miles. Only America is specifically designed to prevent any sort of social services, because people have the freedom to come into town to use those services and the…

Cities already make visitors pay. First there is usually a higher sales tax. Furthermore, many cities have additional taxes on lodging and entertainment. These taxes are quite substantial. Furthermore look at decaying cities in the 70s. The cities weren't subsidizing surrounding areas by providing services. Instead, many businesses and services straight moved out of cities to surrounding areas. So did many people. It…

It would be like saying that Santa Clara was subsidizing San Francisco residents when those residents attend a 49ers games.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#402

Post by throwayyy479087 »

thegjp210 wrote: post #181
throwayyy479087 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC is doing great, as are quality-of-life focused cities like KC, Miami and Columbus. Maybe calling every critic in your town names and letting QoL go to absolute crap is the real driver of movement.

By what metrics is NYC doing "great"? The amount of crime and visible urban decay/blight seems just as pronounced (in Lower Manhattan) as it does in San Francisco

Name an intersection- I’m all over town and things seem normal downtown. Times Square has gotten worse I suppose.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#403

Post by CamperBob2 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #240
buscoquadnary wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to the data, crime in SF is lower that it was a few years ago: https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-Californ ... Every time I see something like this I will point out that during the anti-police movement that happened a while back, many police started reducing their activity either because they were told to, because prosecutes would refuse to prosecute, or because they didn't want to be the…

This theory falls down when you look at murders. They're down with all the others on that link, and they're highly unlikely to go unreported.

Being murdered isn't what most ordinary citizens (and voters) are worried about. There is no reason to think that murder and arson rates are correlated to everyday property crime rates.

Put another way, the guy stealing your catalytic converter isn't doing it because he's afraid to kill you or burn your house down. He's doing it because he has every reasonable expectation of getting away with it and getting paid for it.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#404

Post by rr888 »

ricardobayes wrote: post #233
cpursley wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money goes to where it's treated best and people vote with their feet. I know people thumb their nose on the state, but Florida is open for business. But the real secret is Puerto Rico and their incredible tax incentives for software companies.

The real real secret is Portugal, can't beat 10 years tax-free on foreign income.

"The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal" from last week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32677473

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#405

Post by SECProto »

mochomocha wrote: post #259
pixl97 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, people love blaming (elected) city officials but NIMBYism and "Housing is an investment that should only go up in price" will eventually kill any market.

Yes, but I don't think SF is an exception here. The whole Bay Area is a NIMBY nest that looks frozen in time with infrastructure similar to what was in Europe in the 1950s. That's how my SF neighbor pays 30x less property tax than I do though, so there's that. Too much local democracy: "I don't want someone in Sacramento deciding for me" is how you end up with this expression of pure individualism, where Atherton res…

> The whole Bay Area is a NIMBY nest

The whole every urban area of North America is a NIMBY nest. Pretty much every city is stuck with swathes of land zoned only for single family homes, with any density needing development agreements and land use change hearings and etc. Some cities are less geographically constrained (more sprawl is possible) or slower growing (the zoning changes can accommodate the growth) but the issue is the same everywhere.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#406

Post by bombcar »

LatteLazy wrote: post #294
darth_avocado wrote: post #127

The city officials are asleep at the wheel. Blame it on remote work and pandemic as much as you want, but the reality is that the city was in decline even before that. It is too expensive to live in the city. It is too expensive to commute to the city. It is too expensive to feed yourself in the city. Crime is rampant. Drug use and filth is everywhere. Most importantly city has been hostile to tech and business owner…

Cities need social services to work, because of the density of people. It is a problem when my neighbour is crazy and screams for 18h a day when we live on top of each other in a city. It isn't when we live in the middle of no where and are separated by 50miles. Only America is specifically designed to prevent any sort of social services, because people have the freedom to come into town to use those services and the…

The "cities are forced to subsidize the surrounding areas" can be solved by pushing services up to the county or state level, if needed.

What has happened is people can move and cities weren't ready for that. Moving things to the federal level is the final backstop against it, but even that eventually runs out.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#407

Post by zeruch »

darth_avocado wrote: post #127

The city officials are asleep at the wheel. Blame it on remote work and pandemic as much as you want, but the reality is that the city was in decline even before that. It is too expensive to live in the city. It is too expensive to commute to the city. It is too expensive to feed yourself in the city. Crime is rampant. Drug use and filth is everywhere. Most importantly city has been hostile to tech and business owner…

"Most importantly city has been hostile to tech and business owners."

You are laughable. The reason the City is in this state is because it pandered to tech firms that wanted the "coolness' without paying anything for it (and if anything, getting special dispensations for their own). They got tax breaks and perks, screwing every small local business and middle class residential tenant in sight, for big tech that didn't and doesn't care.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#408

Post by rr888 »

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #146
sidvit wrote: post #34

How's this compare in other cities? Just annecdotally speaking, I feel like I know a lot more people who used to live and work in San Francisco who don't anymore post pandemic, as opposed to friends of mine who left and came back to Austin/New York/Seattle

NYC looks the same as before but with outdoor dining and legal weed.

Manhattan was packed on the weekend, it seems more crowded than pre-covid. Fridays in the office districts not so busy but still people. It has the benefit that people there actually like living in cities.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#409

Post by anonAndOn »

mbfg wrote: post #278
bluedino wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or if you call the police, they just never show up, or when they do, tell you not even bother filing a report. Citizen: Someone stole my backpack and laptop out of my car! Police: And?

Ok, imagine for me the society for which you can file a police report for a stolen backpack, and you relatively efficiently have your backpack returned, and the perpetrator brought to justice. What does that society look like? How does that happen?

Unbelievably, I had a stolen bike returned to me two years later by the sheriff, so it is possible if the item is registered and reported as stolen. No perp justice, but getting the bike back was a pleasant surprise.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#410

Post by bombcar »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #307
commandlinefan wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect this will inevitably be blamed on greedy capitalist building owners, but the crazy tax assessors have some blame here, too. They value these buildings in the hundreds of millions of dollars and asses taxes based on that valuation - and that was "ok" because the building owners could extract that kind of value from the buildings by raising the rents. Now they can't - but the valuation and the taxes owed stay…

I suspect this will inevitably be blamed on greedy capitalist building owners, but the crazy tax assessors have some blame here, too. They value these buildings in the hundreds of millions of dollars and asses taxes based on that valuation - and that was "ok" because the building owners could extract that kind of value from the buildings by raising the rents. Now they can't - but the valuation and the taxes owed stay…

It's arguably part of the reason things get "stuck" as they are, because selling a property triggers revaluation.

But prop 13 had no reason to apply to commercial property anyway, but good luck ever changing that.

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