[dangus]

I can’t see it being a bad thing.

The kind of landlord who is willing to keep a property vacant is not usually a struggling enterprise, unless we are talking about a completely hollowed out declining metropolitan area (which most west coast cities absolutely are not).

In my city, one development in a highly desirable area basically demolished a historic building, built a new one with far more prime retail space including small storefronts and flagship retail (think grocery store or big box store), built it out completely in the interior, totally ready to lease. But in the years since they built the development, the bank branch is the only occupant.

My guess is the bank is squatting on the property. It was probably easy to get a big “revitalizing” property approved, and now they can take a tax write off on multiple retail spaces that they apparently never intend to bother leasing out.

Presumably they don’t want to bother leasing to anyone and actually have to deal with the management overhead of landlording unless someone comes in and pays inflated prices. So they’re happy to sit on it until someone bites. Meanwhile, it’s been an empty eyesore for years now.

[SR2Z]

> The kind of landlord who is willing to keep a property vacant is not usually a struggling enterprise, unless we are talking about a completely hollowed out declining metropolitan area (which most west coast cities absolutely are not).

In CA, Prop 13 ensures that holding costs for landlords of old buildings are virtually zero. If you throw rent control in the mix it's actually very easy to see the incentives that can keep buildings empty.

This is even more severe for commercial properties, where lowering the rent can cause an owner's mortgage to be adjusted.

[shlant]

you think it's more profitable to not lease the spaces because "the management overhead of landlording"?

What do you think a "tax write off" is?

[skybrian]

I wish we didn't have to guess about these things.