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A lot of those five-year contracts were negotiated before Covid and I suspect they will expire in the next year or two. After a certain point, the building owner will have to choose between lowering rents, or having the building foreclosed on due to having no tenants.

Also, at the beginning of Covid, several big businesses just refused to pay retail rent as a negotiating tactic. It would not surprise me if that happens again.



I'm not talking about past, I'm talking about current and future.

"Why would a landlord lower the rent now to a small business"

now.


as the post you responded to said:

> After a certain point, the building owner will have to choose between lowering rents, or having the building foreclosed on due to having no tenants


Except that isn't their only choices. It'll depend on their finances as well as the market futures. Many many buildings sit empty for ages for a whole bunch of different reasons. Can't just generalize into a binary like that.


given the choice between no money and money, most will choose money, and no amount of 'it depends' will change that

the fact that some people let some buildings sit empty for some time doesn't mean most will let most sit empty for most of the time

after all, the next best alternative for building owners is foreclosure or abandonment or sale at a loss, the next best alternative for businesses is 1 of a thousand different places, or just a remote workplace


> given the choice between no money and money, most will choose money

They might not have the choice. Nobody is going to rent ground floor retail space in an area with no foot traffic. It is a race to zero all around.


> Nobody is going to rent ground floor retail space in an area with no foot traffic

of course they will, at a low enough rent, obviously, which is the point: lowering rent is indeed a choice, as is going bankrupt, abandoning the property, foreclosure, or selling it at whatever price


There is a ground floor retail spot near my house with a for-rent sign on the front, that has been empty for years. People have their reasons.


in that case, the reason is that the owner failed to lower rent, declare bankruptcy, abandon the property, get foreclosed on, or sell the property

let the owner rent it for a dollar a month and we'll see if it gets rented


You left out one other case... the owner wants a specific tenant or in the example that started this whole thread, a Chipotle.


who cares what the owner wants?

the owner probably wants a billion dollars and a pony, too, but what they can have are the options I listed

the reason they don't have tenants is because their asking rent is too high and demand is low

in capitalism, that means they should lower rent


One more reason I just came across for you... maybe nobody wants to open a store in Gotham City and no amount of free rent can convince them otherwise...

https://twitter.com/bett_yu/status/1685778275975761920


Not a very convincing hypothesis.


Have you ever owned a retail business in Gotham City? I have and I would never do it again.


still not a convincing hypothesis

instead of trying to make the conversation about me or you, and instead of citing maybe-true singular anecdotes which don't prove your case (that space is limited, and lowering rent won't increase rentors), try just presenting the aggregate data showing that commercial landlords en masse have lowered rent to a dollar and still have these vacancies

WAIT!!!

Wait.

I fear what you heard was, "argue about your anecdote some more", but what I said was, show us the data


One can surmise that the owner cares. As you say, capitalism.


and that's why commercial space is sitting vacant: the owners failed to price them properly

as I said: capitalism




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