I want to open an account for my niece as a graduation present, which I will then fund just enough to buy her a share of Apple stock. Anyone want to recommend something other than Merril which is all I have ever used? And maybe get a referral bonus or whatever? I am thinking SoFi since they do fractional shares and no fees, anyone use them and have good or bad experiences?
I guess I will search the thread in the meantime
I have used Schwab, Fidelity, and Etrade. They’re all fine. No issues.
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Can someone explain why we shouldn’t be terrified of this? Like obviously Wall St. knows this is coming but they don’t seem to care?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/12/office-real-estate-san-francisco/
The 52-story carnelian building, 555 California Street, is about 93 percent leased. But many tenants — which include banks like Morgan Stanley and firms like Kirkland & Ellis — will be up for renewal soon in a city where workers have been slow to return to the office. Co-owners Vornado Realty Trust and the Trump Organization have requested more time to pay back the $1.2 billion loan used to purchase the building, according to loan servicer documents.
Like other commercial landlords and lenders in downtowns across the country, 555 California is staring down a major pandemic downturn in the commercial real estate market. Economists warn the situation could portend disaster, risking parts of the banking system, too.
“It’s scary,” said a finance worker based out of 555 California, regarding plummeting office building valuations in the area. In the more than 20 years she has worked in the building, the woman — who spoke on the condition of anonymity because her employer doesn’t allow staff to comment publicly — said she has never seen it so empty.
In the city’s financial district, many restaurants and stores are shuttered and boarded over, as office vacancies hover around 30 percent, according to CBRE. Last month, just down the block from 555 California Street, the office tower at 350 California reportedly sold for $60 million — an 80% decrease from the price it sold for just four years ago, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The reported seller, Mitsubishi’s MUFG Americas group, did not respond to a request for comment, nor did SKS Partners, the group that bought the building, according to the San Francisco Business Times.
Stalwarts of the downtown retail scene including Old Navy and Cole Hardware are closing their doors. And even businesses that opened flagship storefronts after the pandemic subsided, such as high-end furniture store Coco Republic, have announced closures.
San Francisco is uniquely vulnerable given the large percentage of the population that works in tech or other industries well-suited to remote work and a long-festering homelessness issue the city has failed to resolve.
Banking failures have recently put an additional unwanted spotlight on the city, where offices downtown still bear the name of the recently distressed Silicon Valley and First Republic banks.
This is the scariest part:
In hopes of avoiding a domino-effect financial crisis, Bechtel said he hopes lenders will be willing to renegotiate with landlords rather than take over the buildings… “Most of them aren’t set up to be landlords or real estate owners — they’re banks or insurance companies,” he said.
If commercial landlords are forced to hand over the keys to their lenders, “you’re going to have a lot of distressed sales,” Bechtel said. “They’re going to be selling for cents on the dollar because … that’s not their core business. So, hopefully the lenders will understand the situation that their landlords are in and rework their terms.”
Are the banks and big real estate players just setting it up for the inevitable bailout, and Wall St. is cool with that?
It’s all extremely stupid
Finance bros are so much worse than law bros or tech bros or any other bros
I think a lot of people are still pretty delusional that everything will go back to “normal”. A lot of business types seem convinced that they can crack the code to get people to go back to the office because they don’t relate to actual workers at all or understand their concerns.
Just need a plan for converting office buildings into low-income housing.
This. Sounds like the homeless problem is solved courtesy of bankers
Sounds good in theory, but most modern office buildings don’t have enough natural light to support residential living in the vast, interior sections of the building.
Plus I’d imagine the water/plumbing usage in a residential apartment complex is far greater than your average office complex.
I’d assume that this type of building conversion would entail a total gutting and repiping.
There is a reason why so many companies are requiring back to the office, not to mention city and state governments also doing the same thing with their employees.
Personally I think there will be years of pain but it will end up with many cities turning out for the better when dense downtown land is used primarily for housing in the future.
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Atlanta has had at least some successful office to residential conversions:
Obvi, still luxury apartments, and these projects will all be one-off. It’s a lot slower and harder to retrofit a building than to build new—each project has tons of unique challenges that foster uncertainty, which make it tough to acquire a property for this purpose.
The curious thing about the commercial segment at least in Atlanta is that they’re still building offices—even more than pre-pandemic. Lots of construction, but only in the highest-end areas. Mediocre offices are a bloodbath. Vacancy is up. Bizarre.
https://www.colliers.com/download-article?itemId=dacbfb1b-6e5a-4fee-8911-453d66503fb4
It was kind of a joke. A more serious idea I had was turning failed malls into housing, which feels more doable and has been done. In Asia, they build condo towers attached to malls. High-end, but it could be cheaper.
I had this idea for putting some senior housing at a mall, with a grocery store in one of the anchor spots. The olds can walk the mall and provide a ready supply of retirees who might want a part-time job to pass the time. They could provide steady customers for a movie theater, eat regularly at your restaurants.
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My portfolio is in spitting distance of its all time high before the downturn. Pulling everything out of stonks and into that 4.x% SPAXX account sure seems tempting.
Yes I know it won’t be 4% forever. But it is now.
That’s where you put the theater rooms that come complimentary with every apartment.
not an economist obv, so it’s hard to guess at a singular root cause, but at least in layman terms it seems commercial real estate is usually gobbled up by private equity, which makes it a separate economy from the stock market. if the same delinquency rates were happening in residential mortgages, we’d be calling it great recession 2.0, but if retirement accounts only hold single digits of mall companies and office buildings, it will look like a temporary swing, not even as impactful as a gas prices surge.
the other argument is that regional commercial RE crises happen a lot more often than we realize. you can remember seeing weekly news stories and tv spots about abandoned malls going back to the 90s. the scale of the problem now may be national rather than local, but still that industry has a lot of tools and experience squeezing every possible bailout by selling off and filing bankruptcies at the right moment.
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Pretty much this. Its clear these businesses are still able to operate with a mostly WFH staff. We’ve done it succesfully for 2+ years now. The idea of a centralized downtown white collar working district is essentially dead. People will spread out, businesses will continue to exist and states will step in to convert commercial real estate into livable spaces. This will allow businesses like shopping, food, and entertainment to continue to thrive as their clientelle switches from midday lunch rush basis to WFH anytime clients and family dinner types.
The days of city based working districts is largely at an end. There will be growing pains, but this doesnt have to be panic inducing.
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Another good option is Interactive Brokers. It does fractional shares and the “Lite” account has no commission. Lite accounts can trade stonks from 7am-8pm.
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