Posted on 01/08/2024 5:20:15 AM PST by davikkm
Office building prices in the United States have experienced a substantial downturn, witnessing a significant 40% drop from their peak over the past two years. The past year alone has seen a massive 30% decline, leaving one in five office buildings vacant across the nation. The gravity of the situation is exacerbated by the substantial debt burdens carried by most of these empty office spaces.
(Excerpt) Read more at citizenwatchreport.com ...
For some yes but I think many overestimate how easy it is to outsource a lot of White Collar jobs. The ones that could be done more cheaply were done a long time ago. Lots of companies have actually brought several functions back because Indian/Filipino, etc workers did not have the knowledge and experience to handle things as well as the corporations hoped they could. Its not like there will be a sudden massive new pool of cheap labor abroad that is capable of immediately taking over for US workers. There is a reason they've been bringing in so many H1b Indians to the US rather than just outsourcing everything to India.
The way to make housing affordable to shut down all airports within 50 miles of unaffordable housing.
The federal government owns the airspace and has the power to block airport operation.
Rich people and the corporations they run will shun areas where their private jets can’t take off or land.
“There is a reason they’ve been bringing in so many H1b Indians to the US rather than just outsourcing everything to India.”
Indian labor laws
https://www.aa.com/en-us/flights-to-vail
Actually the flights are to an airport 30 miles away, but close enough to ensure Vail real estate is expensive.
It does no good for NYC to insist a building have 50 ‘affordable’ apartments when 20 buses with 55 invaders each are arriving at NJ Transit rail stations each day.
Yes, because Chase, BOA and Citi will end up owning those regional banks when it is all done.
I am one of about 220 share holders of a small bank in NH. It was started by my former boss and our former landlord. So, both of them are on the board along with several other area business people. They are in the process of their third stock offering/capital raising process. The main thing that was discussed was their exposure to potentially bad commercial real estate loans. Which is minimal. It is primarily a bank that loans money to local businesses. They also have two branches.
If it were one the “Too Big to Fail” banks the Feds would already be talking about bailing them out.
OK. Indian software companies. Great.
But on the ground here in the US, companies brought back several functions they initially outsourced to India and have brought in ever more H1bs to work here in the US. Outsourcing is not the end all be all solution. It can work in some areas but companies cannot simply outsource all the White Collar jobs in the US - or they would have done so a long time ago. American labor is expensive by world standards.
The only ones that haven’t outsourceed yet is government?
Outsourcing was all the rage in the 90s and even early 00s. But companies picked all the low hanging fruit with that and even brought functions back to the US after outsourcing proved to not work well over the last 10-15 years. Its not like somebody can suddenly snap their fingers and make outsourcing work well for areas where it proved to be a failure before just because white collar workers aren't coming into an office to do their work.
Building back better huh Joey.
Conversion of commercial real estate to condos/apartments ranges from very difficult and very expensive to totally impossible.
Usually the finances require taxpayer grants and/or loans.
These days most of them will require “mixed income” which translates into “ghetto” ten years later.....
Worse yet—most of these commercial buildings are in high crime areas—folks who move in to the condos may get lured in by fancy marketing—but after the first mugging or burglary or car break-in they are gone.
It is much cheaper and efficient to build on raw land with totally private funds.
Smart bank—most of the “dumb money” deep into commercial real estate are mid-size regional banks.
Most of the “regionals” are insolvent—they have less equity than paper losses on commercial real estate—but still have cash as long as they do not foreclose on the assets, the Fed keeps the window open to them and bank regulators choose not to close them.
I have former clients (RE developers) who are currently looking at commercial buildings for conversion to residential.
As said in my original post, it depends on the buildings, markets, etc.
If they can do it without federal, state and local money good for them.
But—once government gets involved it gets ugly in a hurry.
If they can do it without federal, state and local money good for them.
But—once government gets involved it gets ugly in a hurry.
They’ll be putting illegal invaders into these buildings free of charge. Bet the farm on it.
The top 10 cities turning old office buildings into apartments—take a look insideYour old office could become someone’s new apartment: Roughly 41% of converted apartments built in the last two years, or 13,250 units, have come out of ex-offices, according to a report from the apartment-search site RentCafe. The trend picked up in the last decade and could grow even more as remote work takes off in the aftermath of the pandemic. Office vacancy rates remain high as employers plan to reduce their physical footprint and real estate developers have to transform vacant spaces. Meanwhile, adaptive reuse, or repurposing an existing building for something new, can minimize the environmental impacts of construction, cost less money, take less time and create more housing in some of the most expensive cities across the U.S.
Looking ahead, roughly one-quarter of apartment conversions planned in 2022 and beyond will take place in former office buildings, according to RentCafe.
Here are the top 10 cities where old offices are being turned into apartments in 2020 and 2021, plus how much it costs to rent there, according to RentCafe and based on data from its sister company Yardi Matrix, a commercial real estate data firm.
1. Washington, D.C.
2. Chicago
3. Alexandria, VA,
Etc.
The economics have to make sense on their own.
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