https://fortune.com/2023/08/03/michael-bloomberg-billionaire-return-to-office-federal-agencies/

Empty offices are a problem that could result in another run on the banks, some economists have warned, with swaths of new office buildings financed on short-term loans with no leases taken out to pay for it. Morgan Stanley estimates that $1.5 trillion in commercial real estate loans are due to be repaid by 2025.

With 176 offices across the world—some of which cost more than $1 billion to build—it’s perhaps not a surprise that Bloomberg is keen to get his own staff back through the doors, a sentiment echoed by JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.

  • Catalyst512 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    What do you mean by the FIRE sector? Isn’t part of this push back to the office due to commercial real estate interests? I’m sure there are FIRE people who own “investment property” but I don’t know if that is the strongest force at play here. Not disagreeing with you just trying to get a better picture in my head.

    • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      Isn’t FIRE, Finance, Insurance, Real Estate? These seem to be the folks who are most deeply invested in returning people to work. The people who took out massive loans on these properties to develop them, with the expectation of steady rental incomes. A secondary effect of the abundance of unrented office space is a slump in development, as well as a slump in the value of residential properties in the immediate vicinity of these downtown economic zones (Who’s going to pay premium rents for an apartment in Midtown when they can telecommute from Maine?). Insurance, while being a very broad industry, is tied very closely with the Real Estate industry, and because of the extreme commodification of housing, this has broad effects on the entire financial economy.