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My interpretation is that the central bank has been a source of revenue for the central government but this time it's not, and the government has budged the use of those funds and now they're not there. That says nothing about the overall solvency and acutally I'm not sure you can even describe the central bank of a country as being "bankrupt" because what does that even mean for the entity that creates (and destroys) money?
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# ? May 18, 2024 18:48 |
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lol at a modern currency not having seignorage
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I haven’t seen the stats lately, but Fed remittances to the US Treasury dried up as well. It used to be over $50b a year.
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mrmcd posted:Today in lol Turkey: woof, 25b is 2.75% of 2022 gdp man, erdagon straight up not understanding how interest rates and inflation interact and single handedly turning the lira to poo poo is a continuing mindfuck edit: seems like a tips-esque vehicle that i guess were priced poorly at auction or something? quote:Under the existing mechanism, lira depositors can hedge against currency losses by getting state-guaranteed compensation for any depreciation that exceeds the interest on the accounts. The costs stemming from the program — previously split between the Treasury and the central bank — were fully transferred to the monetary authority in July last year. also if the problem is an inflation hedge program that they can't unwind, then it seems like it hobbles the banks' ability to print their way out of the issue quote:The program still has the equivalent of about $70 billion in foreign exchange-linked savings. GhostofJohnMuir fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Apr 16, 2024 |
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:woof, 25b is 2.75% of 2022 gdp AIUI it has nothing to do with the official inflation rate (although inflation is a disaster there too). The problem Turkey has with its currency is that it has devalued so fast that any savings people have is immediately converted to USD or EUR. This just makes the problem worse because people are dumping any TRY they aren't spending devaluing it further. It's such a common thing most bank accounts now actually have 3 accounts: A TRY account, a USD account, and a EUR account. So they had a brain genius idea of "Nononono okay if you keep your deposits in TRY instead of converting to USD/EUR, the government will pay you bonus interest so your balance in equivalent USD/EUR today is the same as it would've been when you made the special deposits." When my wife moved to the US from Turkey in 2009 the Lira was 1.5 to the dollar. When we went on a trip there in 2019 it was 6.8 to the dollar. In 2022 when we took another vacation it was ~17. Today it's trading at 32.5. Every single person has learned that keeping any money in Lira is basically setting it on fire and I don't see a way to fix it without some very drastic reforms. mrmcd fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Apr 17, 2024 |
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greshams law strikes again
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mrmcd posted:AIUI it has nothing to do with the official inflation rate (although inflation is a disaster there too). The problem Turkey has with its currency is that it has devalued so fast that any savings people have is immediately converted to USD or EUR. This just makes the problem worse because people are dumping any TRY they aren't spending devaluing it further. It's such a common thing most bank accounts now actually have 3 accounts: A TRY account, a USD account, and a EUR account. That exchange rate was like immediately post redenomination and the prior lira had been losing value against the dollar constantly at a roughly order of magnitude a decade. This isn’t a new problem for Turkey although Erdogan has managed to put a fresh and stupid spin on various things.
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It also leads to some hilarious situations where some places are just really slow to update their prices for political reasons. Like we went to a military history museum in Istanbul once and the admission price was something like 75 cents.
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mrmcd posted:When my wife moved to the US from Turkey in 2009 the Lira was 1.5 to the dollar. When we went on a trip there in 2019 it was 6.8 to the dollar. In 2022 when we took another vacation it was ~17. Today it's trading at 32.5. Every single person has learned that keeping any money in Lira is basically setting it on fire and I don't see a way to fix it without some very drastic reforms. Sounding a lot like Argentina
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So is small retail dead? Every strip mall has a nail shop and salon, and 80% have a dentists office. Beyond that you have the martial arts studios Dining home from the office it looks like half the strip malls are just vacant ghost towns, while the other half have a perpetually empty storefront, with literally acres of parking All the houses are full and everyone is employed - what happened. I know commercial real estate is going through a come to Jesus moment where they're raising the rent way beyond what's economically feasible, but it just seems like more and more shops are closing A B grade office park by my house recently got approved to turn into ~250 town homes, which I guess is an improvement Did we build too many strip malls, did suburbia not grow fast/dense enough, or is this only temporary or what. I would guess 35% of small retail storefronts in my area are vacant
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dont you live in san francisco like me
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No my wife made me move to the suburbs inland east bay ish San Francisco retail is super dead too though, at least near fidi
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Hadlock posted:suburbs inland east bay ish does the ish mean tracy or just 680
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have u heard of this new fad hadlock called amazon dot com because it has like 40% of us retail sales also tho go visit sunvalley mall it's actually not empty
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mrmcd posted:It also leads to some hilarious situations where some places are just really slow to update their prices for political reasons. Like we went to a military history museum in Istanbul once and the admission price was something like 75 cents. Some places that aren't really run for profit might simply not bother to raise a price that was meant to be token anyway.
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drk posted:does the ish mean tracy or just 680 East Concord not quite Tracy hot, but like exactly one hour combo Uber+ light rail each way to downtown Leperflesh posted:have u heard of this new fad hadlock called amazon dot com because it has like 40% of us retail sales Yeah but that asset is just sitting there, presumably rent will continue to drop until something fills it. But instead it just sits there empty for years and years. I can't imagine cities will allow "prime" commercial corner lots up switch to low revenue residential, unlike lovely badly placed office parks in the middle of residential areas
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I don't know if I'm projecting my own shopping habits or not, but when I do go to the mall I'm going there specifically to visit a store. I've already looked up the fact that the store is in that mall and that they have what I want, so I get to the mall and make a beeline to the store and then I'm back out again. With practically everyone having internet in their pockets the only reason I'm going to a physical shop these days is to pick up things I can't or don't want to order online. I'm not spending hours of my time "just browsing" and meandering around to see what new stores have opened up since the last time I visited. I know the store is here and that's all I'm here for.
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Hadlock posted:So is small retail dead? I think you might be overgeneralizing from local conditions. Strip mall vacancies are very low and so far as I know have been a pretty bright spot lately for CRE overall.
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yeah, the entire field of real estate is deadweight loss on the economy, that's why economists call deadweight losing transaction money 'rents', so commercial real estate eating poo poo and dying and total full employment coocurring in the bay area shouldn't be a surprise hope the residential stuff goes next
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I'd heard that one of the major causes of vacancies in urban mixed-use buildings in otherwise vital areas was commercial real estate loans. That lowering the rent to remove a vacancy has a larger downward impact on the appraisal than just leaving the storefront vacant. IMO this seems to fit with what I've seen anecdotally - the vacant buildings tend to be newer, and businesses that close talk about rent being too high even when they're surrounded by vacancies. Older, crappier buildings tend to fill their vacancies very fast. Does anyone know if this has a basis in reality? Strongtowns says it does but curious if it's economic consensus https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/11/27/the-paradox-of-persistent-vacancies-and-high-prices
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Agronox posted:I think you might be overgeneralizing from local conditions. Strip mall vacancies are very low and so far as I know have been a pretty bright spot lately for CRE overall. Yeah, around me it's pretty thriving. Now, I don't know how we're defining "small retail." Does the Sherwin Williams next to the chain drug store, chain fried chicken place, chain tax prep business, and two chain hobby shops (hobby as in crafting plus hobby as in Games Workshop) count? Those are all big, national brands but the strip mall they're in is sure as gently caress doing just fine.
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If we are anecdoting, I'm not seeing empty strip malls or regular malls either. I am seeing a heap of empty office space. The buildings and parking along the VTA in Sunnyvale need to be torn down and those giant apartment blocks like on First Ave need to go in. I've seen lots barren for a decade.
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need to repeal prop 13 so they actually go and do that and also the residential stuff eats poo poo and dies too, yes
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Boot and Rally posted:If we are anecdoting, I'm not seeing empty strip malls or regular malls either. I am seeing a heap of empty office space. The buildings and parking along the VTA in Sunnyvale need to be torn down and those giant apartment blocks like on First Ave need to go in. I've seen lots barren for a decade. If you're talking about Moffett Park, the city has an extremely detailed redevelopment proposal available (hundreds of pages). Here's an idea of the density they are imagining using height limits: ![]() Presumably most of the development requires private investors to fund it, though. At the moment the only large scale development over there is some new Google stuff.
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700' minimums imo
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bob dobbs is dead posted:700' minimums imo the pesky FAA has rules about how tall you can build that close to airfields
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get some vtol planes ezpz
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Hadlock posted:East Concord not quite Tracy hot, but like exactly one hour combo Uber+ light rail each way to downtown I'm not sure if you read me right because sunvalley mall is not empty. When we were there a couple months ago it was full of teenagers.
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esquilax posted:I'd heard that one of the major causes of vacancies in urban mixed-use buildings in otherwise vital areas was commercial real estate loans. That lowering the rent to remove a vacancy has a larger downward impact on the appraisal than just leaving the storefront vacant. Yeah it has to do with how most commercial real estate is leveraged and debt covenants and how it’s valued by sq/ft charge meaning it’s frequently better to leave it empty.
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pseudanonymous posted:Yeah it has to do with how most commercial real estate is leveraged and debt covenants and how it’s valued by sq/ft charge meaning it’s frequently better to leave it empty. Is it actually rational for banks to value vacant rental space over space that was filled by reducing prices? If not, are there any policy levers that would target that misvaluation? If so, are there any policy levers that would target that perverse incentive?
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From the perspective of the building as a whole it can make perfectly good sense to accept some vacancies versus lowering lease costs… some easy hypotheticals: 1. An upscale mall might keep a storefront vacant if the only alternative is, say, a 99 cent store, because your other tenants don’t want to be situated next to one and upscale customers don’t want to be around them either. 2. Apartments over retail has to be pretty careful with the retail tenants for similar reasons. Vacancies might be better for overall revenues versus renting to CASH4GOLD and weed dispensaries and scaring off your apartment tenants. 3. You might also find it more effective to have a few vacancies versus cutting your rents and then facing everyone who renews their leases wanting those lower rents as well. Obviously a lot of this stuff is very fact- and location-dependent and maybe there are some retail vacancies caused through sloth or stupidity or whatever… but I doubt it’s a huge deal.
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Basically whatever you actually rent a spot for becomes a pretty strong indicator of the local market rate for that kind of space. That's why the bank would use it to re-evaluate the value of the whole property. Without that new evidence, the evidence of the market rate is more heavily weighted towards actual rates you're collecting from existing tenants. Keeping your spaces "more upscale" justifies your current rents to your other tenants, both to the bank and to those other tenants. There has to be some tipping point where your other tenants would renegotiate their leases lower on the basis of all the gaping holes, though. Or leave. Banks should definitely be looking at vacancy rate as an indicator that the market rate for these spaces has fallen, irrespective of the remaining lease-payers' rates. That they don't feels like a bank failing to use available data to understand their risk. I'm sure banks are always extremely good at understanding the risk of their own assets. Obviously there's nothing to be done because how can you improve on perfection? Regulating banks is bad, mkay they definitely never foist off massive losses onto the public or just fail with golden parachutes for the rich fucks who own and run banks this won't affect the economy either banks rule
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My question is, if hypothetically I sat on a community zoning board, and the developer proposed a new four floor mixed use building with ground floor retail, and the community has expressed displeasure at the amount of ground floor retail vacancy in the neighborhood; what would be the right question to ask there - "Can you confirm there are no debt covenants preventing you from lowering asking rent for the retail space, in the event of a vacancy?" Is that something that the average developer can reasonably work on or is it so ingrained in commercial real estate lending that it would kill the financing?
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Leperflesh posted:I'm not sure if you read me right because sunvalley mall is not empty. When we were there a couple months ago it was full of teenagers. Yeah I agree, however, sun valley mall is, for suburban east bay California, arguably prime retail Over on Clayton Rd, there's the SE corner of Clayton Road @ Treat Blvd which other than the Staples and a nail place is empty The shopping center at Clayton Road and Ignacio Valley, the... West/Northwest corner has a combo retail with office advice it, other than mountain Mike's Pizza and the bowling alley is dead dead dead Also on Clayton Road there's the shopping center on the NW corner of Clayton Rd and Bailey road (which connects over the hill to Pittsburgh/Antioch, kind of locally important intersection) is mostly empty, anchor store 99¢ is having a going out of business sale, TJ Maxx is still there but all the tiny nail shops and what not are closed now it's at least 70% empty minus two hole in the wall Peruvian and Mexican restaurants On Alameda Island, just east of Webster, right as you exit the tunnel is the marina village shopping center that is completely empty besides the Lucky supermarket, CVS recently pulled out. I was in there looking for a USB charger and besides some very struggling Asian mom and pop restaurants. I finally found one at the weed shop posing as a cigar shop. It's like 80% empty. There is "prime retail" across the street though. There was a really good pizza place/bar in there pre pandemic but they also closed fairly recently it looks like But like, these shopping centers are 30+ years old in long-established, mature neighborhoods with, I think, no major population or demographic shifts, and arguably make the suburbs around them partly walkable, but seems like those shopping centers have been losing tenants and nobody is signing up to fill them I agree places like sun valley mall and downtown Walnut Creek and other prime retail spots are absolutely booming gangbusters business, but local retail that serves local neighborhoods seems to be struggling a good amount. At least in my neck of the woods
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esquilax posted:My question is, if hypothetically I sat on a community zoning board, and the developer proposed a new four floor mixed use building with ground floor retail, and the community has expressed displeasure at the amount of ground floor retail vacancy in the neighborhood; what would be the right question to ask there - "Can you confirm there are no debt covenants preventing you from lowering asking rent for the retail space, in the event of a vacancy?" Is that something that the average developer can reasonably work on or is it so ingrained in commercial real estate lending that it would kill the financing? I wouldn't be that specific. "Given the amount of vacant first floor retail in the neighborhood and this council's desire to minimize that kind of blight, can you discuss your plans to make this retail space attractive despite the demonstrated problems drawing retail to this area? What are your plans for the space if the retail portion fails to find tenants?" edit: point being, directly ask them how they're going to fill the space and what their plans are if they can't.
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Hadlock posted:Yeah I agree, however, sun valley mall is, for suburban east bay California, arguably prime retail I don't have such insider info on any of the others but my casual guess is that some of them are emptying because of rising rents elsewhere and long-term plans by the owners to redevelop to capture those higher rents, so they're just not renewing leases as they expire. The strip mall on willow pass and market by 242 is doing great and has lots of new tenants, and rents there have been going up. So have rents at salvio square, which was definitely not fancy when we moved here 14 years ago but now I think easily fits your definition of "prime retail." A few years ago they redeveloped the huge The Veranda strip mall by 680, it used to be kinda crappy and now it's quite premium, with a new theater, a Whole Foods 365, etc. So I expect all that newly available space sucked up some of the busiensses that used to be more remotely located, or perhaps competitors for them. Another thing that may be going on is a shift in neighborhood age. Places that were newish feeling in the 90s are oldish feeling in 2020s and maybe have older tenants or fewer kids or similar. Definitely home prices have been skyrocketing and that may affect the demographics too. Did you see the old safeway that was on monument and then sat vacant the last 8 years or whatever, got a new tenant last year? It's a Ross now. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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esquilax posted:My question is, if hypothetically I sat on a community zoning board, and the developer proposed a new four floor mixed use building with ground floor retail, and the community has expressed displeasure at the amount of ground floor retail vacancy in the neighborhood; what would be the right question to ask there - "Can you confirm there are no debt covenants preventing you from lowering asking rent for the retail space, in the event of a vacancy?" Is that something that the average developer can reasonably work on or is it so ingrained in commercial real estate lending that it would kill the financing? I was on a zoning board of appeals, and we were limited in what we could legally care about, some things were just allowed by right. After that, a lot of times the answer would be something like, “the management company handling this wants all the units filled.” And that was true. But then some other board somewhere else would deny a permit, and then they’d just give up until the small-town political winds shifted.
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Cyrano4747 posted:I wouldn't be that specific. A few years ago I would have agreed with this or something similar, but in my experience it unfortunately ends up being the type of question that they can vaguely talk around and satisfy the people in the room, rather than directly address the issues - so it often ends up more performative than productive. Focusing on specific, do-able asks and getting their response on those tends to be more effective in my area, even when extremely limited. It's just identifying what to ask for is the hard part. lifg posted:I was on a zoning board of appeals, and we were limited in what we could legally care about, some things were just allowed by right. After that, a lot of times the answer would be something like, “the management company handling this wants all the units filled.” And that was true. But then some other board somewhere else would deny a permit, and then they’d just give up until the small-town political winds shifted. Yeah I imagine this differs a lot by location and how the local politics are structured. In my area things are kind of run where all the people with actual power have no legal power.
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deng xiaoping could get some apartments built despite never taking a significant formal title in his entire life, why not them?
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# ? May 18, 2024 18:48 |
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Hadlock posted:So is small retail dead? Supposedly there's actually huge shortage of suburban retail (heard about this on a recent ep of odd lots). But yea Retail seems to be dying in my city as well, with everything basically becoming dentist offices. Such a trend that even on normie subreddits for towns around here I'm reading people posting like "ugh a new building and instead of a cute cafe it's another dentist office wtf!" Probably one of the most significant causes is No One Has Any Money which is filtering down into less discretionary spending, thus killing retail and restaurants. Wouldn't be surprised if what little money people have is going toward various online stores which has further negative impact. Niche weird issue beyond that, but I was chatting with a guy who runs a very cool gift store that also stocks vintage furniture and knick nacks and he said his biggest problem is an inability to buy anything secondhand to put in his store because so much has moved to fbook marketplace, and people are demanding outrageous prices. So that's pretty niche but in challenging economic times maybe people are doing more fbook/craigslist than ever too.
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