{"id":147486,"date":"2026-09-23T17:35:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T21:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=147486"},"modified":"2026-09-23T18:43:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T22:43:25","slug":"bloomberg-the-office-bust-is-shifting-from-empty-towers-to-investor-losses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=147486","title":{"rendered":"(Bloomberg) The Office Bust Is Shifting From Empty Towers to Investor Losses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>More than six years after the Covid-19 pandemic emptied offices around the world, the bet that time would heal the US commercial real estate market is ending. For years, lenders extended troubled loans rather than crystallize losses, on the assumption that lower interest rates and returning workers would eventually rescue them. But borrowing costs have stayed persistently high, and the Federal Reserve\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-09-17\/trump-denied-rate-cut-as-federal-reserve-targets-war-stoked-inflation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">rate hike<\/a> last week \u2014 and the prospect of more to come \u2014 means little relief is in sight. Billions of dollars of property loans are maturing and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-05-15\/real-estate-lenders-are-eager-to-offload-troubled-loans-even-at-a-loss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">patience is running out<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI joke that sometime between last year and this year was when hope that rates would decline died,\u201d said Josh Morris, partner in global real estate at Davidson Kempner Capital Management. \u201cThere\u2019s broader acceptance of the reality that we\u2019re in a different regime than we were previously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The strains are particularly apparent in the mortgage-backed securities market, where the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.trepp.com\/trepptalk\/overall-cmbs-delinquency-rate-decreased-in-august-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">delinquency rate<\/a> for US office CMBS reached 12% last month, according to Trepp, near a record and above levels hit in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/features\/2026-09-21\/us-office-real-estate-crisis-shifts-to-cmbs-investor-losses\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">America\u2019s office bust is entering a new phase. With interest rates staying high and billions in debt coming due, landlords face a choice: put more money into struggling towers or walk away <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/7wraxSjl5p\">https:\/\/t.co\/7wraxSjl5p<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Bloomberg (@business) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/business\/status\/2102142084413038665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 21, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than six years after the Covid-19 pandemic emptied offices around the world, the bet that time would heal the US commercial real estate market is ending. For years, lenders extended troubled loans rather than crystallize losses, on the assumption<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=147486\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,149,600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-politics","category-economy","category-housingreal-estate-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147486"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147491,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147486\/revisions\/147491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}