[tunap]

Losses are useful, too! McD's has been renting a lot in my town(85331) for 5+ years now, and yet to break ground. ~6 months ago the local "fish wrapper" ran a story on this very topic.

As an aside, back when oil was >$100/barrel Exxon/Mobile had numerous boarded up properties around Phoenix with For Sale/Lease signs that were neither for sale or lease, as the losses/write downs were valued to dilute the windfall profits they were raking in at that time(my source was an agent for CBRE).

[matt4077]

That makes no sense. Sure, you can make a $1 loss to save 50 cents in taxes. Or 5 cents, in the US. But why would you?

Also, real estate investments don't actually have a direct impact on profits when reporting on accrual basis (as all larger companies are required to). Those costs can only be deducted over time (something like 10 years for buildings).

[tunap]

Forgoing revenues, potential profits and taxes on selling/leasing the property(@ pre-2008 market highs); writing off loses of rental income; property depreciation; betting on rising real estate prices(all were still chanting "buy RE, it will only go up" pre-2008). Those are some some possibilities I can think of, but IANAL or CBRE agent, but when I asked one why the blighted corners owned by the biggest earners on Wall Street during the skyrocketing RE bubble were sitting vacant for years, the answer was there was no expectation to sell or lease. And it was not a tank problem, the tanks were removed as the boards went on the windows.

edit: rewording & added last point.