Apartment vacancies at highest level since 1986

[Tilted]

Apartment Glut Expands - WSJ.com

Apartment vacancies hit their highest point since 1986, surging in cities from Raleigh, N.C., to Tacoma, Wash., as rising unemployment continued to chip away at demand during the traditionally strong summer rental months.

The U.S. vacancy rate reached 7.8%, a 23-year high, according to Reis Inc., a New York real-estate research firm that tracks vacancies and rents in the top 79 U.S. markets. The rate is expected to climb further in the fall and winter, when rental demand is weaker, pushing vacancies to the highest levels since Reis began its count in 1980.

With foreclosures and home vacancies also high, it is pretty clear that more people are sharing living accommodations now (e.g. with friends, family). That's probably actually a good trend - in the aggregate, unnecessary more-individualistic living accommodations are among the biggest wastes of societal productivity. Of course, on an individual level, it is a lifestyle choice and I completely understand why most people feel it is worth the cost if they can afford it (I certainly have no room to be critical of that choice). Unfortunately, a lot of people that really couldn't afford it, or could only 'afford' it in the strictest sense, have made that choice.

Here's a hint to builders - stop building for a while - we have an excess of living accommodations.

 

[Larry Gude]

Apartment Glut Expands - WSJ.com



With foreclosures and home vacancies also high, it is pretty clear that more people are sharing living accommodations now (e.g. with friends, family). That's probably actually a good trend - in the aggregate, unnecessary more-individualistic living accommodations are among the biggest wastes of societal productivity. Of course, on an individual level, it is a lifestyle choice and I completely understand why most people feel it is worth the cost if they can afford it (I certainly have no room to be critical of that choice). Unfortunately, a lot of people that really couldn't afford it, or could only 'afford' it in the strictest sense, have made that choice.

Here's a hint to builders - stop building for a while - we have an excess of living accommodations.

I read an interesting piece on, IIRC, Flint Michigan and proposals to simply bulldoze some of the neighborhoods that are pretty much totally empty.

Buy off property owners on the verge of losing everything. Sell the property off to developers with new, low density zoning and 'green' construction.

We can NOT stop building.

 

[Tilted]

I read an interesting piece on, IIRC, Flint Michigan and proposals to simply bulldoze some of the neighborhoods that are pretty much totally empty.

Buy off property owners on the verge of losing everything. Sell the property off to developers with new, low density zoning and 'green' construction.

We can NOT stop building.

We sure can't. But, we can stop incintivizing it. The reality is that we have an oversupply of housing, and we have allocated too much of our collective productivity to providing for our housing.

We artificially create demand (i.e. actionable demand), and of course, there are plenty of people willing to step in and create the corresponding supply. If we didn't artificially create demand, then the created supply would approximate the real demand.

 

[Larry Gude]

We sure can't. But, we can stop incintivizing it. The reality is that we have an oversupply of housing, and we have allocated too much of our collective productivity to providing for our housing.

We artificially create demand (i.e. actionable demand), and of course, there are plenty of people willing to step in and create the corresponding supply. If we didn't artificially create demand, then the created supply would approximate the real demand.

Right. And how to deal with oversupply?

Bulldozers.

To me, this is a great idea. You're taking out bad, loser neighborhoods, buying off those people with something when they were facing getting nothing, modern planning to replace it and get the buyout money back from developers.

Destruction jobs followed by construction jobs.

 

[Tilted]

Right. And how to deal with oversupply?

Bulldozers.

To me, this is a great idea. You're taking out bad, loser neighborhoods, buying off those people with something when they were facing getting nothing, modern planning to replace it and get the buyout money back from developers.

Destruction jobs followed by construction jobs.

That's fine for existing oversupply. I'd prefer not to encourage the creation of oversupply going forward though. That way, society can allocate the productive potential, that would have been lost to construction and destruction, to things with more lasting effects on societal prosperity and individual qualities of life or lifestyle opportunities.

Of course, to efficiently and effectively re-allocate that productivity (i.e. the resources, natural and man-power), we need a better functioning societal system in general (i.e. less socialistic policy).

 

[EmptyTimCup]

With foreclosures and home vacancies also high, it is pretty clear that more people are sharing living accommodations now (e.g. with friends, family).

maybe the prices will drop significantly .... down to a realistic level


$ 600,000 dollar houses in southern PG County is ridiculous

 

[Tilted]

Office Rents Dive as Vacancies Rise - WSJ.com

Rent for office space is falling at the fastest pace in more than a decade as vacancies create a glut and landlords slash prices to attract tenants.

Nationwide, effective office rents fell 8.5% in the third quarter compared with the same period a year ago, the steepest year-over-year decline since 1995, according to Reis Inc., a New York real-estate research firm.

The decline came as companies returned a net 19.6 million square feet of space to landlords in the third quarter, slightly more than in the second quarter. For the first three quarters of this year, the net decline in occupied space totaled a record 64.2 million square feet, the highest so-called negative absorption recorded since Reis began tracking the data in 1980. (That doesn't count space that left the market as a result of the 2001 terrorist attacks.)

The vacancy rate, meanwhile, hit 16.5%, a five-year high, according to Reis.

 

[Larry Gude]

Office Rents Dive as Vacancies Rise - WSJ.com

We've all heard of the coming commercial collapse. What I heard that got my attention was the comparison to residential; A $10 trillion market, residential, vs. 'only' $3 trillion exposed in commercial.

It's gonna hurt but, whereas for a home people will just wait, business looks for opportunity all the time. If there is decent money to be borrowed, might not be too bad.