Free Republic

It's time to sell the business and retire — but that's easier said than done.Gary and Judi Eubanks are one of a kind. Both in their 60s, Judi is a skilled pianist and Gary can often be found playing pick-up basketball with the young people he used to coach. They have two sons and a handful of grandkids, and they’re heavily involved in their local church, where Judi is one of the piano players and Gary is almost always either leading worship or fixing the heating or air conditioning. That’s because the duo also owns All Temperature Systems, a heating,...

A decade ago, as young marrieds with our first baby, my husband and I made plans to leave Washington DC for the American heartland. We had fun living in the city, but we didn’t want to raise our kids there. We’d grown up in flyover country and our childhoods had been greatly benefitted by living farther from the madding crowds.Moving was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. It has been good for us financially, spiritually, and relationally. Although in 2020, like all Americans we endured government and population oppression that suspended our constitutional rights, nobody has escaped those...

“I don’t see any way of avoiding a great deal of pain in the commercial real estate market in 2021. It is almost inevitable. My friends at the Federal Reserve and FDIC are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with what’s going on in the commercial real estate world.”Cam Fine, Former President of Independent Community Bankers of AmericaWFH Threatens Commercial Real Estate ValuationsInvestors hold $3.4T in commercial real estate debt via bonds, direct loans, and securitized loan bundles. Core city commercial real estate valuations could decline if millions of employees work from home (WFH) permanently. Most analysts assume that once virus infections are...

The virus pandemic has accelerated more flexible work options for employees, with many companies instructing employees to work remotely through 2021, or in some cases, permanently. As a result, according to a new survey, CEOs have said they will slash office space, a move that could ripple through commercial real estate markets, all the way down into local economies. In collaboration with Deloitte, Fortune surveyed 171 CEOs between Sept. 23 to 30, found 76% of respondents are expected to reduce office space size in the near term. About 28% of them said they would need "a lot less" corporate...

When half the working class is facing economic devastation and the other half still has to show up to work, are we really all in this together? I’m a lawyer in New York City, currently working from home due to the coronavirus shutdown. For me it’s working quite well. Almost all of my work was done on computer, internet, and phone even when I was doing it in an office, so doing it from a home equipped with a computer, internet, and phone is not really much of an inconvenience. In fact, comparing the distance from my home to my...