alt Hacker NewsThe financial instruments are commercial real estate loans.
Those loans often do not allow the borrower to charge lower rent.
Property taxes are not calculated that way. The property tax rate for a given year is backed into (a "mill rate") based on approved dollars of spending divided by total property value. If total citywide property value drops by 50%, the property tax rate doubles that year.
So no, the property value changes aren't really an issue.
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>Those loans often do not allow the borrower to charge lower rent.
I have never seen it substantiated that a promissory note in commercial real estate has a clause that dictates how the borrower can price their products or services.
There will be terms for the borrower to be in default if they lose too much revenue or their expenses go up too much, such as leaving spaces empty:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dscr.asp
Whether a lender wants to foreclose on a borrower in default is far from guaranteed. Often times, they are loathe to take over management of a building so they simply work out a new agreement with the borrower.
I'll add a few bits. Commercial leases are typically "triple net" so taxes are passed pretty much directly through to tenants and land lords don't need to worry too much about them. A very visible part of the "dead downtown" effect is due to small businesses that have terrible margins, high fixed costs (including rent), and don't survive losing 20% of their customer base. And finally, anyone paying attention saw that Seattle core downtown is a highly concentrated bet on office rental to the exclusion of almost any other use of space or reason to go there.
A few years back I did an art installation in one of the storefronts at the 2+U building and in the process got to study up on some of the issues and talk to a few people, the general theme was that everyone had a vested interest in focusing on possible causes that were external and fixable within a short time. I don't think that's reality.