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San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

sfstandard.com

441–450 of 622 posts

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Put another way, the guy stealing your catalytic converter isn't doing it because he's scared to burn your house down. He's doing it because he has every reasonable expectation of getting away with it and getting paid for it. Catalytic converter thefts are up everywhere, though. Not just in liberal bastions, but in places like Arkansas and Mississippi, too. Cops saying "if you just gave us more money and toys, we'd…

True to some extent, certainly. But if a cop in Arkansas catches you stealing a catalytic converter, the rest of your day is going to play out very differently compared to how things would have gone in SF.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Every property owner is NIMBY. Renters don't have to care and can just fly away.

A very small percentage of renters do not have to care and can just fly away.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#443
post #362

NYC is already starting to see office-to-residential (apartments) conversions, even down near Wall Street. Sad that this article doesn't even consider that (I searched for "residen" and found only a single match, for "president". If SF has a surplus of office space and a shortage of housing stock, well the buildings are already built. I don't see why you couldn't do both: Saleforce tower could have some residential f…

What % of office buildings do you think can be converted into residential?

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#444
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

My impression is that London is fairly thriving… after a period of people leaving for calmer/cheaper places during the pandemic, anecdotally I’ve heard of a lot of people returning for whatever reason (missed the buzz of it, had to go back in to the office a few days a week and the commute sucks, small town/country life not all its cracked up to be, etc).

Apparently demand vs supply for rental properties is quite crazy, with places going off the market within hours and people getting into bidding wars (not normal for rentals in the UK in my experience).

Most people I know are back in the office at least a few days in week, though a lot of tech companies (certainly smaller ones) are letting people work fully remote.

I work remotely so can’t say what the number of people on public transport going to work is like, but pubs and restaurants seem to be doing well again, which is great to see.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#445

Worked for a company once who boasted surviving the hard times of the dot com bubble by selling their headquarters and renting it back until things got better. Has this happened yet or are owners still holding onto their real estate for own use?

There are no buyers. Nobody wants San Francisco office space.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#446
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OH NO A WHOLE MONTH!! Inventory of listed homes remains extremely low. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ACTLISCOUCA Median days on market still near all-time lows SF: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDDAYONMAR41860 Cal: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDDAYONMARCA USA: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEDDAYONMARUS

The Monthly Supply of New Houses in the United States is considered by some to be a more reliable leading indicator of the housing market and it is at historical highs: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSACSR Days on market is going up dramatically in July where normally it should be going down. The inventory of listed homes is going up as well- overall in all those graphs there is a clear trend in the housing mark…

New homes are not that great of a signal because they are a small part of the market and have a tendency to exist in the most speculative places. Certainly in the context of Oakland the nationwide inventory of new homes is all but irrelevant.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In an ideal world house prices would increase 1:1 with wage growth from an affordable baseline. There's only one way to do that - a command economy, with all housing owned and doled out by the government. That just doesn't work, anywhere, ever. You have to work very hard to ignore the fact that some places are more desirable than others to live in, and sometimes those desirable places change. Also, different people…

It's a good question and how we "did" it in the past might need to be investigated. House prices and appreciation were basically the same throughout the US until something like the 1950s, when places like CA began to far outstrip other parts of the country. I don't think that CA became a desirable place to live suddenly in the 50s, but perhaps it did?

The relevant metric is did a place become far more desirable to far more people. Which seems obvious when information becomes more and more available, culminating with instant transmission of pictures and videos and forums that create lists of the most scenic or best weather or best beaches, etc.

This is also ignoring sheer population growth, and the unrivaled economic behemoths that have come out of California since the 1950s and produced a ton of wealth for Californians.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#448
post #390
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida could be a real option vs SF but not with Fascists in charge.

Do you consider all people who are politically conservative to be fascist or just Trump supporters?

Trump supporters and their (potential unwittingly) ideologic leanings seem to tick a lot of the boxes: "Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."

Source: https://wikiless.org/wiki/Fascism

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Californians and the like are moving to Idaho, so the COL there will gradually increase towards parity. And perhaps Arkansas eventually? https://www.camdenarknews.com/news/2022/aug/31/will-climate-...

As someone who moved to ID because I have in laws in the area I can tell you it is a terrible place, no one should move here, the locals are rude and crude, it is freezing 8 months out of the year. Everyone here is an avid Trump supporter and openly racist. They drive big pickup trucks everywhere. The mountains are too far away and horrible, everything here is terrible in every way no one should move here the entire…

I guess Micron must be using slave and child labor in the fabs at this rate.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#450
post #56

In a way I'm glad that a large chunk of San Francisco's population is getting exactly what they have wanted for years – to get rid of big tech takeover of the city. Maybe they will actually fare better with a significantly reduced number of tech workers and jobs, or maybe they won't. At least we'll know for certain now, and can stop all the whining.

This is degentrification, and it's happening in Seattle too. We're reverting to the dirty, grimey cities of olde, where only the starving artists were indifferent enough to live there.
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