Opinion
By Peter Stone, Brownstone Institute
03-25-24
In case you’ve still got money in a bank, Bloomberg is warning that defaults in commercial real estate loans could “topple” hundreds of US banks.
Leaving taxpayers on the hook for trillions in losses.
The note, by Senior Editor James Crombie, walks us through the festering hellscape that is commercial real estate.
To set the mood, a new study predicts that nearly half of downtown Pittsburgh office space could be vacant in 4 years. Major cities like San Francisco are already sporting zombie-apocalypse downtowns, with abandoned office buildings baking in the sun.
So what happened?
The Fed’s yo-yo interest rates first flooded real estate with low rates and cheap money. Which were overbuilt.
Then came the lockdowns, which forced millions to figure out new workday patterns. People liked foregoing the long commute (not to mention the free money). Despite every effort, downtown businesses have not been able to get all workers back.
Read the full article here: The Meltdown of Commercial Real Estate ⋆ Brownstone Institute
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
