[LEMONS] 12.28.2001
San Francisco office rents have plummeted by 50 percent and citywide vacancy rates are at an all-time high.
I just can't get my head around that. 50 percent. My God.
When I worked at a particularly stupid dotcom called onedemocracy.com--a company devoid of both business plans and leadership, where the only measure of an employees performance was what time s/he came in in the morning--I was amazed at how hard it was for them to find space to rent. Commercial real estate prices were soaring. Some landlords were even demanding stock options (oh my, stock options! remember those? that's just too rich) from dot-coms that moved in. It was insanity. This crash shouldn't surprise anyone. Everyone I knew with any sense at all knew a crash was coming, and we all hoped that it would drive down real estate prices. I remember, after the Market "correction" in March (or was it April?) of 2000, hearing bubble-headed analysts saying that a) this was it, things would rebound now, and b) it wouldn't affect real estate prices in San Francisco. Dipshits. Proud dipshits, all.
- l i n k -
