Yeah the inner cities in the US are in deep trouble. Nobody works downtown anymore and there is crime & homelessness everywhere. I live in the SF bay area and SF & Oakland are in serious danger of both going bankrupt in a few years. A Square executive just got killed in one of the safer parts of SF (One Rincon Plaza is the home of luxury apartments & condos). Plus you got the death spiral created by these politicians who only double down on their stupidity. The education systems are collapsing here and they want to hand out $5 million to descents of slaves but not the Native Americans. These people are completely brain dead.
1. Nobody works in downtown SF anymore 2. 500 square foot condos costing $1.5 million in SF Choose one.
Holders of CRE loans will get crucified, as will office REITs. The world will go on. Downtown office buildings which can't be converted or rented profitability to cover costs will be demolished and replaced with apartments. Crime, vagrants, and leftist horseshit are a major problem in some cities, much less so in others, and rents/prices for downtown flats in places like Manhattan, Boston, DC are still sky-high. As long as cities don't let vacant zombie office buildings sit around for years, the end result could be much more vitality in downtown office districts which were once dead after 5pm.
Well one silver lining from this is that all these half-empty commercial real estate spaces is going to be converted to residential housing now and that would resolve some affordability crisis. No more living in vans and having to shower in mobile shower facilities or YMCA hopefully. Before letting the banks to foreclose on the property I am sure the owners would try to do something to earn some revenue to repay the mortgages even if it means spending hefty conversion costs.
Most can't be concerted. How do you repipe most rooms with water, gas, individual heating....most office building floors consist of large undivided rooms. It would cost tens of billions to cover a few high rises in a single city alone.
Don't think it's that expensive. Commercial buildings get converted to condos and apartment buildings all the time. I have visited quite a few myself. These converted condos don't sell for millions of dollars a unit so the conversion costs wouldn't be that expensive otherwise the owners would go bankrupt and these conversions wouldn't be attempted at all. There shouldn't be many changes that need to take place except a few crucial building code adherence after all people are able to sleep in their offices and many offices have individual bathrooms and everything. Building experts/contractors/developers here are welcome to chime in to give your expert opinion. I stand ready to be corrected.