Even the mainstream is starting to acknowledge the massive problem of vacant office buildings littering American cities, slowly turning them into post-Covid wastelands. While a few pundits are claiming (in somewhat Orwellian fashion) that the surge in empty commercial real estate is actually a chance for a utopian turnaround in the ashes of Covid weirdness, the potential for an “Urban Doop Loop” triggered by CRE is now being widely acknowledged as a possible trigger for a broader economic meltdown.
Problems in the commercial real estate (CRE) sector continue to bubble under the surface. This is a major stress point for US banks and could precipitate the next phase of the financial crisis.
A combination of high interest rates and declining tenancy is putting the squeeze on commercial real estate owners. As a result, banks hold a growing portfolio of delinquent CRE loans.
Janet Yellen recently said she doesn’t think the US economy will slip into a recession. Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey explains why he doesn’t think we should put a lot of stock on Janet’s prognostications, and he goes on to point out some major fissures in the economy and financial system that are opening up under the surface.
In March, I warned that the commercial and investment real estate markets could be the next thing to break in this bubble economy. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal put a face on my warning.
The Federal Reserve has added nearly $400 billion to its balance sheet in just two weeks while simultaneously claiming to still be in the inflation fight. While things seemed pretty quiet this week after the bank bailout, Friday Gold Wrap host Mike Maharrey says it’s only a matter of time before the next shoe drops. What will that be? In this episode, he talks about one possibility. He also talks about some interesting demand news in the silver market.
Could the commercial real estate market be the next thing to break in this bubble economy?
The rampant money creation and zero percent interest rates during the COVID pandemic on top of three rounds of quantitative easing and more than a decade of artificially low interest rates in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis created all kinds of distortions and malinvestments in the economy and the financial system. It was inevitable that something would break when the Federal Reserve tried to raise interest rates in order to fight the price inflation it caused with its loose monetary policy.
We’ve talked extensively about the growing levels of debt in the economy. The national debt recently eclipsed $28 trillion. Corporate debt was already skyrocketing prior to the pandemic. All of this is driven by loose Federal Reserve monetary policy designed to drive borrowing. And people wonder why Peter Schiff insists the Fed can’t actually let interest rates rise to fight inflation.
As economist Doug French highlighted, there’s another segment of the economy buried in debt – the commercial real estate market. The problem is compounded by the fact that the value of commercial real estate is falling like a rock thanks to a shift toward work-at-home and the brick-and-mortar retail apocalypse. In a nutshell, the commercial real estate market is plagued by too much debt and not enough assets.
It appears the government lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the deflation of the commercial real estate bubble.
According to CoStar Group, an estimated $126 billion in commercial real estate will be forced to sell at distressed prices over the next two years. That will eclipse the amount of distressed commercial property sold during the first two years after the 2008 financial crisis.
