alt Hacker News> This is almost entirely an artifact of the financial instruments used to pay for these buildings, regardless of any Seattle policy changes.
Why would this be different in Seattle than in other cities? Many downtown office towers are bought or built using a lot of debt throughout the U.S. What do you think makes Seattle special?
> We just saw another building turn over, US Bank Center. The new owner bought it at a price where they'll be able to lease it competitively, and it won't sit empty. We'll see that continue to happen.
The news story mentions the U.S. Bank Center example. What it says that you're leaving out is just HOW big that discount is:
> The new owner of the U.S. Bank Center, having paid just $280 million, or less than half of what the building went for in 2019, presumably can afford to lower rents enough to fill the place, which is now 45% vacant, according to CoStar.
A discount of more than 50% is a bubble bursting. It's great that the new owner can offer fire-sale rent, but where does that leave the old owner, if they were truly as leveraged as you suggest they were likely to be?
> The Seattle Times has always been a conservative rag, and their editorial board hates the new mayor, so they hit the "Seattle is dying" story as often as possible. They've got a long history of this whenever there's leadership they don't like, ask me about it!
OK, I'll ask you about it. This "Seattle Times = Blethen family propaganda" line has been tiring for the 25 years I've been hearing it. What exactly are they not covering about Seattle's downtown today that you think they should be? Why do you think that their opinion staff influence the news coverage so much? In short, if the Seattle Times has a conservative bias in its news coverage, why does the Wall Street Journal famously have a liberal-biased newsroom?
Why is Seattle impacted worse? Because so much of our office space was tech companies that decided they didn't need as much office space and can do their work remotely.
Look up the old owner and you'll realize why it doesn't really matter that they're taking a massive loss, and why I don't really care. I left it out because it's already a long comment and that's not really relevant.
They could have written an article about how foreclosures on office buildings take a long time and that sublet offerings in Seattle are turning over at a healthy rate. And the owner of a company in media absolutely influences that coverage, why do you think everybody's worried about CBS, or for a long time Fox News?