What are Vacant Office Towers Worth? Foreclosure Sales Show How Values of 1980s Office Towers in Houston Have Collapsed, Dishing out Huge Losses for CMBS by Wolf Richter • Feb 17, 2022 • 177 Comments The loans were securitized into CMBS in 2014. From hype to heck in 7 years. Other markets with office busts have something to stew over.
Banks Disclose Tidbits of Hidden Stock Market Leverage, as Known Stock Market Leverage Surges by Wolf Richter • Oct 15, 2021 • 115 Comments No one knows total stock market leverage, but it’s huge and ballooning, as we see from the tidbits we’re allowed to see.
End of the Era of Voracious Corporate Appetite for Office Space by Wolf Richter • Aug 24, 2021 • 128 Comments Formerly temporary, now persistent work-from-home turns into slow-motion nightmare for office landlords.
Creditors Foreclose on Another Mall of Simon Property Group, Face Massive Loss by Wolf Richter • Jul 21, 2021 • 147 Comments As largest mall landlord in the US sheds its malls, CMBS holders, such as bond funds and pension funds, take the losses.
A Glimpse at Hidden Stock Market Leverage of “Securities-Based Lending,” as Known Stock Market Leverage Spikes to WTF High by Wolf Richter • Jun 16, 2021 • 96 Comments We don’t know how much total leverage there is, but from the trends in margin debt, we know it’s huge and ballooning.
Who Holds the $1.65 Trillion of Apartment Building Debt amid Eviction Bans and Plunging Occupancy Rates at High Rises? by Wolf Richter • Dec 18, 2020 • 186 Comments You guessed it: For over half of it, taxpayers are on the hook. Time to take a look.
Biggest Share Buyback Queens in Q3: Tech and Buffett. The Banks Are Gone. But Share Buybacks Plunged 42% YoY by Wolf Richter • Dec 17, 2020 • 151 Comments Funded with debt: Share buybacks totaled $5 trillion since 2012. Over same period, corporate debt soared by $4.5 trillion.
Jingle Mail Haunts Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities as Property Values Get Slashed Below Loan Amounts by Wolf Richter • Oct 26, 2020 • 125 Comments At the time of securitization into CMBS a few years ago, inflated collateral values led to soothingly low loan-to-value ratios. Then trouble hit.
Two San Francisco Hiltons Add to Woes of Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities. Special Servicing Rate of Hotel CMBS Spiked to 26% by Wolf Richter • Oct 12, 2020 • 84 Comments Four of the six hotels that REIT Park Hotels & Resorts owns in San Francisco are closed, with convention & business travel at near-zero.
What Does the Fed See Heading at Big Banks? Blocks Share-Buybacks, Slaps on Dividend Caps Due to “Economic Uncertainty” and “Cushion Against Loan Losses” by Wolf Richter • Sep 30, 2020 • 78 Comments My Big-Four Bank Index already got crushed back to 2004 level.