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哥伦比亚大学商学院(Columbia Business School)教授斯蒂恩·范·纽维尔伯格的绰号可谓引人注目。2023年,《纽约时报》(New York Times)根据他的预测言论称其为“城市末日预言家”,原因是他多年来一直在研究经济影响,或远程工作对房地产和公共财政的影响。
现在,他告诉《财富》杂志,他发现了20世纪70年代螺旋式下降的“事件视界”,这种下降在经济学界被称为“厄运循环”。而这只是第一局。
众所周知,全美各地的办公楼都受到了新冠疫情和远程办公兴起的冲击。与纽约市相比,也许只有旧金山更能够说明问题,在那里,积满灰尘的写字楼数量创下历史新高:近20%的写字楼空置,导致资金大量流失,城市税基缩水。
除了范·纽维尔伯格,更多的经济学家认为,这一影响可能远远超出房地产行业:他说,如果不进行大刀阔斧的改革,纽约市可能就会陷入自我延续的“厄运循环”,这将影响从住房价值到公共服务预算到犯罪率的一切。最著名的例子是20世纪70年代,当时“白人外逃”和财政危机让纽约陷入了无法摆脱的长达十多年的低迷。
范·纽维尔伯格在接受《财富》杂志采访时表示,这是一个简单的等式,“政府削减开支意味着用于交通、教育、卫生以及所有使城市具有吸引力的事物的资金减少。”
范·纽维尔伯格于2018年加入哥伦比亚大学。在因为研究房地产市场冲击对宏观经济的影响而获奖的短短数年后,他认为,这种厄运循环的“事件视界”即将到来。他说,随着联邦拨款的耗尽和赋税延迟效应开始显现,纽约正在陷入合乎情理的城市危机的旋涡的“第一局”。
“在未来三年到五年内,我们将真正开始发现这一点。这一循环已经失控。”
延迟效应
远程办公颠覆了传统的城市办公空间市场。研究表明,员工在约30%的带薪工作日居家办公,这一数字在科技、媒体和广告等城市化程度较高的行业甚至更高。由于对办公空间的需求下降,损害了租金和房地产价值,商业地产业主难以实现收支平衡。
企业所需的办公室类型也在发生变化。房地产咨询公司Corion Enterprises的首席执行官弗雷德·科多瓦告诉《财富》杂志,为了吸引员工回流,各大公司正在寻找办公空间较小、较新且设施和福利较多的办公室。这给多年来一直是城市商业地产支柱的中端(和新空置)写字楼带来了压力。时机再糟糕不过了。
科多瓦说:“很多这样的建筑都是在2013年和2014年金融危机之后购买的。这些贷款大多是10年期贷款。因此有将近1万亿美元的贷款即将到期。无法再进行融资……他们中的大多数人可能无法偿还债务。”
最重要的是,在新冠疫情期间为支撑该行业而投入的联邦资金开始耗尽,这可能会导致一系列违约。范·纽维尔伯格指出,由于税法的渐进主义特性,审计员才刚刚开始感受到数年前开始的违约潮所带来的全面影响。
这正是城市预算观察家们担心的地方。商业地产价值的下跌已经降低了业主的纳税额。但是,陷入困境的商业地产业主无法偿还债务,或是可能无法支付税款,这一情况带来的冲击波可能远远超出房地产行业。范·纽维尔伯格称,纽约市的税收收入中略低于10%来自商业地产,这一收入来源的任何实质性下降都会损害整体预算支出。
带来冲击波
银行业对商业地产的风险敞口较大,也面临着房地产价值下跌带来的压力。超大型银行大多是安全的,但规模较小的地区性银行和地方性银行持有纽约的大部分商业地产债务,如果空置率上升、房地产价值继续下跌,这些银行就将缺乏资本来维持更长时间。范·纽维尔伯格指出,在美国6万亿美元的商业房地产债务中,银行持有约一半的债务,但在这一半债务里,70%由小型地区性银行持有。
科多瓦说:“一些地方性银行、社区银行的风险敞口过大……它们将破产。”
“厄运循环”理论的关键在于它可以自我延续。如果空置率上升、房地产价值下降,城市就无法获得同样多的税收,风险敞口过大的银行也不得不削减贷款。这意味着交通、卫生和公共安全等方面的公共支出减少,对小企业的投资减少。环境更恶劣、更危险、交通更不便利的市中心更不可能吸引公司和远程工作者,这意味着空置率会进一步上升,房地产价值将进一步下跌。富裕的居民可能会放弃抵抗,举家(和税收)迁往得克萨斯州或佛罗里达州等低税率的州。如此循环往复。
范·纽维尔伯格说:“现在资金即将耗尽,或者说已经耗尽了。今年是第一年,我们再也看不到额外的联邦资金流入了。这已经开始产生影响……[而且]空置率已经创下历史新高。这一组合带来了相当严重的冲击。”(财富中文网)
译者:中慧言-王芳
哥伦比亚大学商学院(Columbia Business School)教授斯蒂恩·范·纽维尔伯格的绰号可谓引人注目。2023年,《纽约时报》(New York Times)根据他的预测言论称其为“城市末日预言家”,原因是他多年来一直在研究经济影响,或远程工作对房地产和公共财政的影响。
现在,他告诉《财富》杂志,他发现了20世纪70年代螺旋式下降的“事件视界”,这种下降在经济学界被称为“厄运循环”。而这只是第一局。
众所周知,全美各地的办公楼都受到了新冠疫情和远程办公兴起的冲击。与纽约市相比,也许只有旧金山更能够说明问题,在那里,积满灰尘的写字楼数量创下历史新高:近20%的写字楼空置,导致资金大量流失,城市税基缩水。
除了范·纽维尔伯格,更多的经济学家认为,这一影响可能远远超出房地产行业:他说,如果不进行大刀阔斧的改革,纽约市可能就会陷入自我延续的“厄运循环”,这将影响从住房价值到公共服务预算到犯罪率的一切。最著名的例子是20世纪70年代,当时“白人外逃”和财政危机让纽约陷入了无法摆脱的长达十多年的低迷。
范·纽维尔伯格在接受《财富》杂志采访时表示,这是一个简单的等式,“政府削减开支意味着用于交通、教育、卫生以及所有使城市具有吸引力的事物的资金减少。”
范·纽维尔伯格于2018年加入哥伦比亚大学。在因为研究房地产市场冲击对宏观经济的影响而获奖的短短数年后,他认为,这种厄运循环的“事件视界”即将到来。他说,随着联邦拨款的耗尽和赋税延迟效应开始显现,纽约正在陷入合乎情理的城市危机的旋涡的“第一局”。
“在未来三年到五年内,我们将真正开始发现这一点。这一循环已经失控。”
延迟效应
远程办公颠覆了传统的城市办公空间市场。研究表明,员工在约30%的带薪工作日居家办公,这一数字在科技、媒体和广告等城市化程度较高的行业甚至更高。由于对办公空间的需求下降,损害了租金和房地产价值,商业地产业主难以实现收支平衡。
企业所需的办公室类型也在发生变化。房地产咨询公司Corion Enterprises的首席执行官弗雷德·科多瓦告诉《财富》杂志,为了吸引员工回流,各大公司正在寻找办公空间较小、较新且设施和福利较多的办公室。这给多年来一直是城市商业地产支柱的中端(和新空置)写字楼带来了压力。时机再糟糕不过了。
科多瓦说:“很多这样的建筑都是在2013年和2014年金融危机之后购买的。这些贷款大多是10年期贷款。因此有将近1万亿美元的贷款即将到期。无法再进行融资……他们中的大多数人可能无法偿还债务。”
最重要的是,在新冠疫情期间为支撑该行业而投入的联邦资金开始耗尽,这可能会导致一系列违约。范·纽维尔伯格指出,由于税法的渐进主义特性,审计员才刚刚开始感受到数年前开始的违约潮所带来的全面影响。
这正是城市预算观察家们担心的地方。商业地产价值的下跌已经降低了业主的纳税额。但是,陷入困境的商业地产业主无法偿还债务,或是可能无法支付税款,这一情况带来的冲击波可能远远超出房地产行业。范·纽维尔伯格称,纽约市的税收收入中略低于10%来自商业地产,这一收入来源的任何实质性下降都会损害整体预算支出。
带来冲击波
银行业对商业地产的风险敞口较大,也面临着房地产价值下跌带来的压力。超大型银行大多是安全的,但规模较小的地区性银行和地方性银行持有纽约的大部分商业地产债务,如果空置率上升、房地产价值继续下跌,这些银行就将缺乏资本来维持更长时间。范·纽维尔伯格指出,在美国6万亿美元的商业房地产债务中,银行持有约一半的债务,但在这一半债务里,70%由小型地区性银行持有。
科多瓦说:“一些地方性银行、社区银行的风险敞口过大……它们将破产。”
“厄运循环”理论的关键在于它可以自我延续。如果空置率上升、房地产价值下降,城市就无法获得同样多的税收,风险敞口过大的银行也不得不削减贷款。这意味着交通、卫生和公共安全等方面的公共支出减少,对小企业的投资减少。环境更恶劣、更危险、交通更不便利的市中心更不可能吸引公司和远程工作者,这意味着空置率会进一步上升,房地产价值将进一步下跌。富裕的居民可能会放弃抵抗,举家(和税收)迁往得克萨斯州或佛罗里达州等低税率的州。如此循环往复。
范·纽维尔伯格说:“现在资金即将耗尽,或者说已经耗尽了。今年是第一年,我们再也看不到额外的联邦资金流入了。这已经开始产生影响……[而且]空置率已经创下历史新高。这一组合带来了相当严重的冲击。”(财富中文网)
译者:中慧言-王芳
As nicknames go, Columbia Business School professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh has a doozy. The gray lady herself, The New York Times, dubbed him the “prophet of urban doom” last year for his forecasts resulting from his years of research on the economic impact or remote work on real estate and public finance.
Now, he tells Fortune, he sees an “event horizon” for a 1970s-style downward spiral known in the economics profession as a “doom loop.” And it’s just the first inning.
Everyone knows office buildings across the country have taken a beating from Covid and the rise of remote work. Perhaps only San Francisco is a better example than New York City, where the amount of offices collecting dust is at a record high: almost 20% are sitting empty, hemorrhaging money and shrinking the city’s tax base.
More economists than Van Nieuwerburgh say that the effects could reach far beyond just the real estate sector: Without drastic changes, he says, NYC could be headed for a self-perpetuating “doom loop” that will affect everything from housing values to public services budgets to the crime rate. The most famous example is the 1970s, when “white flight” and a fiscal crisis sent New York into a slump that it didn’t kick for over a decade.
It’s a simple equation, Van Nieuwerburgh said in an interview with Fortune, “Governments cutting spending means less money for transportation, less money for education, for sanitation, for all the things that make cities attractive.”
Van Nieuwerburgh, who joined Columbia in 2018, just a few years after winning an award for his research on shocks in the housing market affecting the macroeconomy, sees the “event horizon” for this doom loop coming soon. As federal grant money runs out and delayed tax effects kick in, he says New York is in the “first inning” of what could spiral into a legitimate urban crisis.
“Over the next three to five years, we’re really going to start seeing this. This cycle is out of control.”
Delayed effects
Remote work has upended the traditional market for urban office space. Studies show that about 30% of paid days are worked from home, a number that trends even higher for more urban sectors such as tech, media and advertising. Commercial property owners are struggling to break even as demand for office spaces has fallen, hurting rents and property values.
The kind of offices that companies want are changing, too. To entice workers back in person, companies are seeking out smaller, newer offices with more amenities and benefits, Fred Cordova, CEO of real estate consultancy Corion Enterprises, told Fortune. That’s putting pressure on the middle-ground (and newly vacant) office buildings that have for years been the backbone of the urban commercial real estate sector. The timing couldn’t be worse.
“A lot of these buildings were purchased after the great financial crisis, in 2013 and 2014. Most of those loans were 10-year loans. So there are almost a trillion dollars of loans coming due,” said Cordova. “There’s no way to refinance … most of them probably can’t pay their debt.”
On top of that, the federal money that poured into the sector to prop it up during Covid is starting to run out, which could usher in a string of defaults. And because of gradualism built into the tax code, comptrollers are just about to start feeling the full effects of the wave of defaults that started a few years ago, said Van Niewerburgh.
That’s what has city budget watchers so worried. Falling commercial property values are already lowering building owners’ tax payments. But struggling commercial owners not being able to pay off their debts—or, potentially, their taxes—could send shockwaves far beyond the real estate sector. New York City generates a little below 10% of its tax revenue from commercial properties, and any meaningful decline to that revenue source would hurt budget expenditures across the board, Van Nieuwerburgh said.
Sending shockwaves
The banking sector, which has high exposure to commercial property, is also under pressure from beleaguered property values. The biggest banks are mostly safe, but much of New York’s commercial property debt is held by smaller regional and local banks that lack the capital to hold on for much longer if vacancies rise and property values continue to fall. Van Neiuwerburgh said that banks own about half of the $6 trillion in commercial real estate debt in the United States—but of that half, 70% is owned by small, regional banks.
“Some of the local banks, the community banks that are overexposed … they’re going to get killed,” said Cordova.
The crux of the “doom loop” theory is that it’s self-perpetuating. If vacancies rise and property values fall, cities can’t collect as much in tax revenue and overexposed banks have to cut back on lending. That means less public spending on things like transit, sanitation and public safety, and less investment in small businesses. A dirtier, more dangerous and less accessible downtown is less likely to attract companies and remote workers, meaning vacancies will rise even more and property values will fall further. Wealthy residents could throw in the towel and move their families (and tax dollars) to low-tax states like Texas or Florida. And thus, the cycle repeats itself.
“The money is now running out, or it has run out. This is the first year where we don’t see extra federal dollars anymore. That’s beginning to bite…[And] the vacancy rate is already at an all-time high,” said Van Nieuwerburgh. “That combination packs a pretty severe punch.”