Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This is a wierd one. I was at the Stonebrier Mall in Frisco TX this past weekend. This is a HUGE mall in the VERY north part of the Dallas Metroplex.
It was packed. I had to park way out at the edge of the parking lot. the place was jammed and all the shopping areas around the mall were packed as well.
It was early evening (5pm ish) and the 30 or 40 resturants right there were all packed as well.
This is a wierd one. I was at the Stonebrier Mall in Frisco TX this past weekend. This is a HUGE mall in the VERY north part of the Dallas Metroplex.
It was packed. I had to park way out at the edge of the parking lot. the place was jammed and all the shopping areas around the mall were packed as well.
It was early evening (5pm ish) and the 30 or 40 resturants right there were all packed as well.
If it's an enclosed mall, I don't blame people for using it to get out of the heat and have fun shopping and eating.
Texas as well as Oklahoma have not been as severely impacted by the slow down in the economy as the east coast. Oklahoma City's unemployment rate is only 4.5%.
The market is just expecting the taxpayers to bail out the investors when CRE crashes. Why shouldn't they after all. Playing loose yet again expecting the taxpayer to take the fall is what is going on. Same as with the housing crash. Just a matter of time. Of course if the banks and investors are bailed out all is well and we get to look at empty strip malls.
"Giant holding of retail space in a time when retail spending is collapsing. We have seen consumers pulling back usage of credit cards and discretionary spending. The only reason for this enormous price increase is the market is now highly mispricing risk because of the enormous moral hazard embedded in the entire system. We went from having a bank failing causing the market to react to now, we need an entire country to reach collapse like in Greece to yield any reaction to the markets. And this notion that companies are no longer at risk is naïve and at worst, problematic for our entire system. We took systemic risk and digested it to the entire network of our economy. The risk is now directly linked to taxpayers through various bailouts and Federal Reserve programs aiding banks. Yet the problems are still there. Unemployment is still at its peak and we’ve been losing jobs for 25 straight months. Prices on residential real estate and CRE have yet to come back because people no longer have access to loans that don’t verify their income or ability to pay the loans back. The market is mispricing risk yet again believing that these trillions in loans at risk will simply be back stopped by the entire country.
Japan gives us an example of what happens when a country turns their banking system into a zombie like nation. The big banks like hungry alligators demand more and more money and this sucks away from the productive economy. You also have a rise in part-time employment (Japan has one-third of their workers on part-time status). We now have seen a massive rise in this part of our underemployed economy, the largest ever. And Japan spent trillions in trying to stimulate their economy and here they are two decades later with little to show for their massive financial bailout. Instead of facing the music at once it was spread throughout the Japanese citizens to pay over decades. The outcome is the same, someone has to pay for the bad bets. Will it be the institutions or the people? The United States with their bailout policy has decided that it will be the people who pay for this mess.
So when you look at the CRE market, don’t be deceived that things are suddenly better. In fact, they are as bad as they ever were. The market is simply assuming that the taxpayer will make all these bad loans whole like Goldman getting protected via AIG and taxpayer funding. In the end someone will pay and true values will eventually have to be reflected."
If it's an enclosed mall, I don't blame people for using it to get out of the heat and have fun shopping and eating.
Texas as well as Oklahoma have not been as severely impacted by the slow down in the economy as the east coast. Oklahoma City's unemployment rate is only 4.5%.
I think I agree with you to a point... but it wasnt just the indoor mall. The outside shopping areas (and that area is HUGE) were packed too.)
And once inside the mall, it was clear those folks (like us) were there to shop and not just be cool.
Not here. Central Denver is doing pretty well with a boom in apartment building, lots of businesses opening up (first Ikea and H&M getting ready to open). Couldn't tell you about the far-flung suburbs though - I don't make it out there very often.
The downtown area of my little Denver-metro suburb is a happenin' place right now with lots of restaurants. The closest mall has some vacancies, and a formerly busy mall is being demolished.
My answer was non-partisan. There is a political group out there that is intent in the systematic transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. This is fact and it's in every single piece of leglislation they propose. That party is the republican party.
Answer this.
If you cut social security by raising the retirement age to 69, and you use that savings to cut the capital gains tax to 0% or the inheritance tax to 0%. How is that not a transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top? It's, by definition, taking money from poor seniors and giving the money to wall street hedge fund managers and the walton family.
Please answer THIS question: If the wealth we are transferring was earned by those at the top in the first place, why shouldn't we transfer it? Please PM me about this. Unlike you, I am not trying to hijack a thread to make a partisan point. Do you have any insight into the original topic of this thread?
Thank you for turning a non-political thread into childish bashing of a party. You successfully proved how many Americans would rather 'feel like they are right' and 'beat the other party' than work for any real improvement.
To answer the OP, I am in Pittsburgh, PA and everything is doing great. The suburbs are suffering somewhat, but here in the city itself, everything is really booming.
My hometown is Pittsburgh... last time I was there in 2008, I thought downtown looked like it was struggling some but the North Hills (I drove through Cranberry) looked like it was doing very well.
I'm curious, which suburbs do you think are suffering? South Hills? North Hills?
As for where I live, I live in San Jose and things seem to be doing fine concerning business in the little strip malls.
I have family in Houston and the last time I was there which was last year, I saw a lot of vacancies in the malls.
My hometown is Pittsburgh... last time I was there in 2008, I thought downtown looked like it was struggling some but the North Hills (I drove through Cranberry) looked like it was doing very well.
I'm curious, which suburbs do you think are suffering? South Hills? North Hills?
As for where I live, I live in San Jose and things seem to be doing fine concerning business in the little strip malls.
I have family in Houston and the last time I was there which was last year, I saw a lot of vacancies in the malls.
This is purely my opinion...I really have no facts to back this up, but I see a lot of vacant buildings along McKnight road and in Monroeville right now...downtown though, is doing great. I read somewhere that 25% more people live downtown now than did two years ago.
You are right though...cranberry is doing very well. It is just some of the older suburbs that seem to be hurting a little. (Millvale looks closer to a ghost town every day)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
