What I’m Reading
Staying Power: Office CMBS distress may last quite a bit longer than initially thought according to Trepp as revenues continue to decline while expenses rise. Globe Street See Also: As employers eagerly await the Covid-19 vaccines that promise to return staff to offices after months of working from home, new reports indicate getting them back won’t be easy. A recent study from Pew found that more than half of US employees currently working from home would like to keep their remote arrangements beyond the pandemic. Bloomberg
Buried: As many as 20.1 million Americans are behind on their rent at an average of nearly $6,000 per family, which will come due when eviction moratoriums expire in January. To give you a point of reference, that is roughly the population of Florida. This is why its so critical to see some sort of rental support in the next fiscal package. Landlords and tenants are both in trouble without it. Another troubling aspect of this is that President Elect Biden has made comments in support of rent forgiveness. That’s great for tenants but would leave landlords at the mercy of their lenders. Business Insider
Crooks: The Paycheck Protection Program offered small businesses a few months of relief, but it was also a magnet for opportunistic scammers and prosecutors will be running down fraud for years. NY Times
Exodus: The median rent for a studio apartment in San Francisco dropped 35% last month from a year earlier, to $2,100, while costs for one-bedrooms were down 27% to $2,716, according to data set to be released this week from Realtor.com. Two bedroom units were down “only” 21%. There is going to be distress showing up soon. At this point its inevitable. Bloomberg
Center of the Storm: While California cities get all of the headlines, home values in the Central Coast are soaring, up 25% in some markets. CalMatters See Also: Urban tenants are flocking to the Inland Empire at the expense of Los Angeles and Orange Counties. OC Register
Silver Lining: Businesses have adopted new processes and technologies to deal with the pandemic—and there are signs that they may pay off in the form of rapid productivity growth. The Economist
Chart of the Day
I have no words.
Source: @SoberLook
WTF
Bad Santa: A mall Santa is facing felony charges after allegedly exposing himself to a teenage co-worker. The Smoking Gun
Cashing In: A woman was arrested for hiding a man’s body in her trash can in order to get his Social Security benefits because Florida. ABC Action News Tampa Bay
Basis Points – A candid look at the economy, real estate, and other things sometimes related.
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