Mark Waligora posted an interesting analysis on current commercial real estate vacancy and its causes.
Today’s commercial real estate market was distressed, even before rates starting rising. The problem, in a nutshell, was excess capacity. During the last several years, America constructed shopping malls and office buildings to satisfy the excess, phony demand that easy credit produced. But now that home equity loans and other readily available forms of credit have disappeared, so has the phony demand.
The unfortunate result: a glut of shopping malls, office buildings and hotel/motel properties.