(cont'd from yesterday's post)
"Commuters left" refers not to all commuters leaving big cities, but rather a significant percentage of commuters. Lockdowns are long gone. Most workers have gone back to their offices in the cities - but still work remotely from home.
New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles now have only about half of the commuters they had before the pandemic. That's a lot of people who don't come downtown every day anymore. They used to go to shops and restaurants - many are closed.
Big office buildings are partly empty now. Owners can't regain their rent income, so they default on their loan (mortgage). They stop making payments, hand the keys over to their bank/lender, and now the building is their lender's problem. The lender won't recover the full loan they made to the property owner.
Real estate companies and lenders are taking a hit, and cities take in lower tax revenue.
Beautiful, iconic Union Station in Washington D.C. has an uncertain future. Its owner defaulted on $430 million in loans in 2020. That steady stream of commuters which supported it . . may never come back.
No comments:
Post a Comment