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‘Zombie Offices’ Spell Trouble for Some Banks - The New York Times (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

123 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This is the real reason for companies wanting people back to the office.

All this talk about collaboration and team spirit is just the publicly given reason for wanting people back to the office.

The real reason is that now the owners of the buildings are losing money.

Cry me a river.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Yes, thank you! I hate this constant narrative that back-to-office is always tied to commercial real-estate investments, or that there's some magical tax incentive.

Usually what you have is: bank lends money to a commercial real estate company that owns the building. Commercial real estate company leases out office space to one or many companies. When those companies reduce or terminate their leases, the commercial real estate company struggles to pay their mortgage and defaults. Commercial real estate loses. Bank loses. And if commercial real estate had pooled investments to fund the building (along with bank loan), then those investors lose as well.

There are some large companies that own their own buildings, but that's more of an exception.

[–] roofuskit 9 points 9 months ago

But those rent paying companies have very wealthy boards who are invested in commercial real estate.

[–] TheFrogThatFlies 6 points 9 months ago

And the companies are controlled by venture capitalists, who are smart and distribute their investments. So they have interests in various companies, including the real estate companies.