The Economic Time Bomb in Empty Office Buildings
In this Bloomberg Originals mini-documentary, we explore just how bad the commercial real estate crisis might get—for the US and the world.
Photographer: Angela Weiss/AFP
How did the commercial real estate crisis happen?
Part of it is arguably tied to the Great Recession. Among the prescriptions for recovery back in 2008 was lower interest rates. Over time, cheap money poured into real estate and cities all over the world were transformed. But in 2020, pandemic lockdowns emptied out buildings and many of those tenants have yet to return. This year, commercial real estate loans are becoming a big problem for landlords, the banks who lent them money and soon maybe everyone else. In the Bloomberg Originals mini-documentary The Time Bomb in Empty Office Buildings, we explore how we got to this moment and how bad the crisis may get.