What this means though, is that a financial apocalypse is looming in commercial real estate and it will be followed by contagion in residential.
back
4 comments
This is the sentiment I hear from my circles. While remote work is great for finding top talent and all (productivity arguments aside). The commercial real estate market is essentially Wile-E-Coyote running in air after running off the cliff.
It'll just be converted to residential.
Young people still want to live in cities. It's how they find people to date and things to do.
All the new high rise construction in my city is now residential, and there's quite a lot of it going up.
My city curiously just bought an empty high rise office building with the intent of converting it into affordable housing.
Converting modern office buildings to residential can be difficult because commercial buildings often have more interior (windowless) space and we insist (often by law) that bedrooms have windows. Sometimes it can be done, depending on the building’s shape, but “wasted” interior space can be a big financial loss, which is essentially about acknowledging that the building isn’t as useful as people expected. (Though I’m sure some use could be found for the space.)
Charles Munger tried to do it differently with beds on the inside, but this is unpopular [1].
One reason that companies go for an open design is to get more natural light into the interior, which makes for a good first impression, but has other downsides like noise. (Sometimes homes don’t have enough rooms with doors either.)
[1] https://www.archpaper.com/2023/08/university-california-aban...
Often, it's not that easy. NYT had a good article on this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...
Not only commerical real estate but the adjacent businesses that depended upon that traffic, and the shortfall in tax revenue cities / counties were getting from that activity.
Oh well. It's not like you have the right to recoup or profit from buying a house. You paid what it was worth to live there at the time. It's a place to live, not a stock.
Problem is that residents will be punished for this more than the businesses.
Definitely agree on the first point (although maybe not "apocalypse"), but why would that affect residential?
Property taxes will have to skyrocket to compensate for the lost tax revenue in many cities. Whether we like to admit it or not, the infrastructure costs are a shared cost and if we lose a lot of commercial tax revenue that was indirectly gathered from residents, it will have to be gathered directly from residents.
Increased property taxes will push people on the margins out and compound the issue while also decreasing real-estate value.
You’re trying to scare people into thinking another real estate crisis on the scale of 2008/2009 is looming. Stop. The commercial real estate market is a fraction of the residential real estate market.
Further, actual local businesses in communities are benefiting from WFH workers.
I didn’t say that. I don’t see how businesses in these commercial areas do not suffer, and I don’t see how that does not translate into job losses, and I don’t see how this combination does not result in lost tax revenue.
WFH likely means people spend less on gas and eating out. This is one of the benefits touted by WFH proponents, myself included. I am spending at least $300 less a month since WFH.
Yes I’m certain some tax revenue shifted to the city I live in, but it definitely shifted away from the city my office was in.
>You’re trying to scare people into thinking another real estate crisis on the scale of 2008/2009 is looming.
it's not 2008 levels, because as you said residents outpace business. But it is a significant factor and I'd say it is looming.
>actual local businesses in communities are benefiting from WFH workers.
I'm not so sure about that (I feel less inclined to go out when WFH), but I'd love to see data on this.