Commercial real estate flounders as housing market booms

[Demovictory9]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/investing/commercial-real-estate-recession/index.html

The housing market is red hot thanks to record-low mortgage rates and consumers looking to flee cities for the suburbs. But offices, shopping malls and other commercial real estate properties have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

The rise of Zoom (ZM), Slack (WORK) and other productivity tools has made it easier for people to set up home offices and still get their jobs done. Meanwhile, Amazon (AMZN) and other digital retailers are flourishing amid the Covid-19 pandemic as the shift from bricks to clicks has accelerated.
"There will likely be less demand for commercial real estate due to the rising popularity of online shopping and working from home," said Ivy Investments global economist Derek Hamilton in an e-mail.
That's why giant corporate real estate firm Brookfield Property Partners (BPY) said it will lay off 20% of the 2,000 employees in its retail arm, which owns malls and other shopping centers that include Tysons Galleria in Virginia and the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas.

[empedocles]

1. One DC resident built a McMansion near here [35 miles from DC] - as a 2nd home. Rarely there.

[customerserviceguy]

2. Brick and mortar stores

were already in decline before the pandemic, now the plug has been pulled. Maybe those vast spaces can be repurposed.

[safeinOhio]

3. Amazon warehouses and Super WallMarts.

Oh boy.

[lunatica]

4. Maybe they'll let it become meadows and forests again

If work is no longer done in specific buildings then cities will change. Commuting will change. Perhaps everything will be within the communities. Things like doctors offices, dentists, supermarkets.

The longer it takes to control the pandemic the more things will change. And it looks like at best we won’t get the upper hand with the pandemic until way into next year. As it is there is a second wave hitting other countries again.

[customerserviceguy]

5. Well, I don't anticipate that

There is utility infrastructure serving these properties, I was thinking that some residential use might be made of such places, if feasible. We may have too many shopping malls for 2020, but we don't have too much housing at this point.

[lunatica]

6. That's much more possible

They could do that but it has to become a deliberate change. A cityscape renewal, or rework, with a plan in place that addresses food production as well. A city of the future already envisioned by many as we can see in a lot of the programming on channels like CuriosityStream.

Such things don’t work out too well if left to chance.