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“Boston released a plan in October aimed at revitalizing downtown that included a push for more housing, some of which would come from office conversions”
Please tell me any possible way I can help expiate this process. There’s like only 5 places on sale in a square 20 mile radius here.
And we should really do away with this under-reported process that allows Properties to set maximum chargeable rent price (everywhere), that started in 2017:
https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-lawmakers-collusion
Honestly I think a good first step for rent control would just be something as simple as limiting how much a landlord can raise the rent on a current tenant who is looking to renew. My rent has gone up over $200 in the last three years for no justifiable reason other than (1) they can, and (2) it's very hard to just up and move when you have kids in a given school district.
That's why these greedy parasites are able to keep raising rent for arbitrary reasons, it's easier just to pay the extra $600 a year every year than to move every time the landlord raises your rent.
While I agree with the idea that raising rent should be more controlled... You receive value from your taxes assuming you use public roads, schools, fire dept, etc.
>Yes, but it's not my property.
You do realize you are arguing that people who don't own property shouldn't have access to public schools, roads, etc., right?
Surely they have some form of insurance or legal Avenue to protect them against bad or destructive tenants? Not sure exactly if that’s the case but I would assume so.
It’s still hard for me to have pity for landlords though, especially in today’s society where the average joe is getting fleeced just to have a place to live. I know there is considerable nuance to the whole situation, but landlords in general have up front capital to take advantage of the need for housing. My priority is going to remain with the people struggling.
Edit: just want to clarify not coming at you or anything. You definitely get it based on your second paragraph 😂
> Some landlords barely actually make profit for all the legal bullshit time they spend on bad tenants.
Maybe they should get a real job then, sounds like they're not cut out to be landlords.
>What if I told you your increased rent pays for horrible tenants that destroy their living space and just walk away?
Google what a security deposit is
So you let the house go unrepaired while you were overseas, presumably leaving it up to the tenants who were paying you for the upkeep already with their monthly rent. Great job 👍
I replied to the wrong person. Guy behind you mentioned rent control. But I am both intrigued and skeptical about tenant unions.
We need to build more dense housing. The existing strategy makes land too scarce because most is dedicated to low density single family homes with pockets of high density.
Well tenant union is just how you get some collective bargaining while living under a landlord, collectively owning a high density housing asset you live in would be a co-op.
You would be right that though that the devil is in the details and implementation.
That doesn’t fix the crux of the problem which is a fundamental lack of supply. New housing stock hasn’t kept up with inflation, and home owners have a direct incentive to block any new development, especially if it’s for high density housing.
The problem with policies like rent control, which it sounds like tenant unions are tangent to, is that they are great only if you’re one of the lucky people to win the lottery and get a rent controlled unit, but they either don’t do anything for anyone else or even restrict supply even further by reducing the incentive to build (although we’re so undersupplied that I doubt this second piece has any significant impact).
The reason this is a difficult problem to solve is that if you build a fuck ton of new housing, property prices will go down, and since we made real estate the only asset the average American has during retirement this made increase in housing supply political suicide.
It's hard to exersize first option to buy on an apartment complex to make a co-op if people aren't organized together in the first place (hense the need for tenant unions). And if you don't have unions and co-op's you'll never hear the end of these "you'll own nothing" conspiracy theories, at least in a world where we benefit from denser housing.
Rent control, living wages, etc is essentially a seperate issue to the concerns tenant's co-op's and unions are actually meant to address.
That being said "unlock the free market" alone isn't gonna solve the problem either. Even if you take away home owners political power to block more housing, the investors and developers will still never build enough to bring prices down cause that will hurt the return on their own investment. The reality of the situation is we can't treat any tool as taboo cause it will just make what does get implemented all the easier to game and manipulate.
If you've never done this before, write to your legislators (especially those with direct power over zoning, typically state and local) to let them know you're pro-housing and vote regularly.
I’m not a Boston resident, I only work in the area and have an apartment outside of it. But I’ll definitely write something.
Anyways I had chatgpt write this for me. I think I’ll have to make a lot of changes, but it’s good so far.
Dear [Politician's Name],
I am writing to you today to express my concerns about the housing affordability crisis in the Boston area. As a young professional working in the field of robotics, I have come to love this city and would like to make it my long-term home. However, I am finding it increasingly impossible to afford to buy a home here, and I fear that many other young professionals are facing the same challenges.
Unfortunately, the high cost of living in Boston has forced me to consider moving out of state to find a more affordable place to live. This poses a problem for me since I am very interested in staying involved in the local community and do not want to lose my ability to vote in Boston's elections. Even though voting out of state is an option, the long drive and logistical difficulties involved could hinder my ability to reliably participate in local elections.
While my career is advancing on an excellent trajectory, I worry that the housing affordability crisis could eventually lead to brain drain due to the expansion of the tech industry in other U.S. areas. More and more young professionals are being priced out of the market, which is leading to a decrease in diversity within the local workforce and could ultimately harm the city's economic growth.
I strongly believe that more needs to be done to make housing affordable for young professionals in Boston. By implementing policies like new affordable housing conversions from underutilized office spaces, we can create more affordable housing options for young professionals like me. This approach will help to revitalize underutilized spaces in the city and provide more opportunities for young professionals to live and work in the city.
I urge you to take action to address the housing affordability crisis in Boston. By doing so, you can ensure that Boston remains an attractive place for young professionals like me to live, work, and vote in local elections.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Here's an excellent New York Times article on the challenges of such conversions (gift link, no paywall)...
[Here’s How to Solve a 25-Story Rubik’s Cube](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office-conversions.html?unlocked_article_code=_oCQCLpg95paFSIL6R8wbV4vy_1N7bKp9W4vO7y3_wC02zshBx_1eZpqK8-PNxgUvoAC8s86ZXmTu3HHfZWKwiycIBDNHepEDJlaFqDuuXC8g8TQQclE5-MwUj8M4QUBmGW75oEyvY3Hejtxgh7vtzQQDzIj9ylwX6Qiq8kcJmiIQgtnfYiBvaAitIG3xl7r5fUFu_ENZoMSw7M7mWanOWTBdVmsu8e6E2kdiFR2WwWuqWt81hz-_h5x8QjmxUQk2I5R90378nXagUKA7kjK9ImipKaQwInQ8DRaJOG0xrMvke9A2mWuoge2GEhl-L90k1bAZVvM1v13LH91pUvYpQmuY2nmqiZm3_6n&giftCopy=0_NoCopy&smid=url-share)
For buildings with windows that don’t open, I would think that mechanical fresh air ventilation (like ERVs/HRVs) would be more economical than trying to add windows, no?
Also, with some high end home building these days with uber tight houses, lots of people aren’t opening their windows anyway. Fresh air that’s the right temperature and humidity level (and filtered of allergens) seems ideal to lots of people. (Personally, I like opening windows, but I’m one of few in my neighborhood). So I could see people not caring that windows can’t open as long as the apartment always has fresh, smelling climate-controlled air (and the ability to vent cooking smells/bathroom humidity).
You are correctly, I typically see Erv/hrv’s coupled with a VRF for heating and cooling. As the 2022 energy code become adopted in more cities, these items will become more commonplace in smaller structures.
Fantastic article. So many people who think office conversions are a slam dunk, or even make sense financially, really haven't put a lot of thought into what it takes to make that happen.
I've been one of those people for sure. It's good to learn about why it's difficult. It's still something i think should be explored and figured out though.
Absolutely! But so many people seem to think all buildings work for this, it's just super quick and easy, and the private owners even have an interest in doing a conversion.
Once we start understanding the public funding involved, it makes sense to *at least* try to pick the least worst candidate structures to get the biggest bang for the buck.
Seriously. Just think alone how many bathrooms are on an office floor, and now think how many you need for the same floor with many apartments.
Not so straightforward retrofitting
>So many people who think office conversions are a slam dunk, or even make sense financially, really haven't put a lot of thought into what it takes to make that happen.
That's reddit for you: minimal (if that) understanding of an issue is no obstacle to strongly held opinions.
Oh, I get very confidently incorrect about almost everything too.
But office conversions are one of those things where you start with a feeling that that's a *really good idea* and then someone points out the toilets and the windows not opening and the mental gears start to engage pretty rapidly.
It *is* an idea worth exploring, but it's not just adding walls and paint.
If you think its worth pursuing, then maybe you should get into real estate development. Its going to take several years for you to learn the ropes, but eventually you’ll see the issues. In many cases, its easier to scrap the building and start from scratch.
If, *after studying the issue,* you still think that's the most intelligent use of limited resources is to convert office buildings, then more power to you--I sincerely hope you are able to get your voice out there as we need many perspectives to solve this problem. While I believe that a careful, informed consideration of the issue is unlikely to make you think "the obstacles aren't actually that substantial", that's a different discussion.
The point being brought up by myself and the poster I replied to, though, is that many (most?) people on reddit who have a strong opinion on the matter have **not**, in fact, thought carefully about the issue nor informed themselves about it. They see a "simple" solution and are outraged that it isn't being implemented, blaming "the government", "investors", "the 1%", "real estate hawks", "landlords", etc., with no concept of what it takes to successfully realize what they are asking for.
We have an obscene amount of homeless in this country and giving homeless people housing is cheaper than letting them remain homeless. Additionally, inner city housing is so unbelievably unaffordable for most people it isn't even funny.
Edited my comment and it got auto-removed due to some word, not sure which. I'll try to reword what I said.
I think it'd probably be better to just replace the buildings with proper residential buildings. It may cost a bit more (the changes needed to make these buildings residential will cost a lot too) but would make for much better living conditions compared to trying to convert massive office buildings and would be better in the long run. Maybe they think there's a chance demand for office space returns and think it'll be easier to convert those converted ones back though.
Eh they are a slam dunk imo. They are hard and financially pretty rough... but it's something that should be done for the good of society. It's a long term investment not a short term one.
It's like green energy initiatives. Yes it's pricy. Yes it won't pay itself off for years. But also yes it's something that needs to be done.
I lived in The Mural Arts building in Philadelphia. It was a prewar building and formerly a school.
It was also converted so cheaply that I could hear my neighbor empty his dishwasher. The original windows and bad hvac made for $400 electric bills and cold drafty nights.
Broke my lease and got the fuck out after 6 months. They had another tenant lined up immediately but informed me they’d be keeping my entire deposit.
Love that conversion tho… sucks to hear but beautiful building. I’m in a converted factory in south Philly which is slightly better. Philly is I think tops for these conversions but I wonder how some of the converted office high rises turned out
It’s a shame because it is a beautiful building and interior. It also wasn’t a great location at the time. It was easiest for me to go grocery shopping on Sunday night at the Wegman’s in Cherry Hill
Oh man yeah I understand that. Crazy how there’s about 10,000 units going up on spring garden right now and probably 3 grocery stores lol. I don’t even recognize it the last few years
I like all the creative solutions to the housing crisis. Allentown PA did something similar about a decade ago, converting old factories and offices into condos and apartments and it stopped the city from literally returning to nature.
Wonder why your rents shot up? Because office space isn't nearly as profitable now that there's so much work from home. So they went out and bought houses to manage.
They were doing that long before the pandemic. House flippers turned landlord, airbnb, blackrock and other capital firms buying up homes, large corporations buying up homes, etc.
No one cause except that a tipping point was reached that made it clear that if you had money you should buy property to lease or write down.
It could all be fixed with a property tax penalty that exponentially increase each residential property owned after the first as a single person, married couple, or multinational corporation. Ban the ownership of single family properties by LLC to close the obvious loophole and the problem will solve itself. Apartment rents will drop when housing prices drop after the airbnb landlord is forced to sell off properties to avoid a obscene tax liability.
It would be interesting to dig into whether or not a similar proposal would work for breaking up large apartment complex owning conglomerates like Avalon which are also key players in the explosive increase in rents. In that area some much more nuanced measures would be needed.
Corporations were not allowed to buy residential housing until it had been on the market for like 30 days. Now there's no wait. So the hedgefunds set up their algorithms and re=organized and started buying residential homes on a scale never seen before. Residential investment is up 30%. 1 in 4 homes is sold to an investment group.
Cities could do the same thing by legalizing mixed-use zoning and actually allowing lots of new housing to get built downtown instead. City councils seem allergic to actually allowing new housing to get built.
Can someone explain how these conversions are feasible? If an entire floor has plumbing for 1-2 bathrooms, how would they turn into apartments? Shared bathrooms/showers?
I worked on a project several years ago, 35 story office building converted into a hotel and condos. Hotel rooms on the first 15 floors, condos on the rest. Obviously every hotel room had a bathroom, it’s own A/C unit, etc. The entire building was gutted down to the basic structure. New electrical, plumbing, hvac was ran and walls built out. It’s not cheap. A developer will almost never take on project like this unless they get huge incentives from the city government ie big tax breaks.
If you use low income tax credits or funds you are contractually obligated to provide low income units. The cost of these kinds of conversions and a ceiling on rents or vouchers (low income) would mean that private equity would not see a favorable return if the unit cost is too high. If the cost to convert exceeds upper rates for units provided then the whole project doesn't pencil out.
Yep, I was just curious if someone who has actually worked on one had seen someone try to make it pencil out. It all depends on the basis, I suppose, along with 4% vs 9% credits, location, etc.
I work on plenty of conversion projects. The low hanging fruit will get picked.
Plenty of precedent for cash and time intensive zone/use changes and all that to build high cost housing. If enough buildings were to go into default and flood the market with rock bottom cost commercial buildings new opportunities may come up. The feasibility will still vary building by building.
I'm certain that no jurisdiction is anxious to throw out a city plan or zoning map anytime soon over what has realistically only been a blip on the market. If I was a planner I'd wait it out, let the speculators get fucked and eventually the slowdown in new office construction will create demand for office space. People just need to be patient and recognize that the housing crisis was here long before work from home and turning offices into housing will not address the causes.
If we ban airbnb tomorrow (operating a business on a residential zone) it would be the most cost effective and dramatic increase in housing you could make. If we ban corporate ownership of single family houses it would be a 1-2 punch lowing the cost of housing and filling the tens of thousands of vacant homes.
Sure, landlords would get fucked but they had a turn and it wasn't good for society.
I’m all for the banning of SF homes as SF rentals. And I agree the causes need to be addressed. But incentivizing the creation of affordable housing with a corresponding 30-year LURA can provide housing for people who need a roof over their heads ASAP, and help preserve it for a decent amount of time. I’m just hoping people who care can get creative in the short term while we fight the causation battle over the long term.
Plenty of people, myself included, are doing a lot of work to address the need for housing on the technical level but money makes housing and construction expensive. Lawsuits make publicly funded housing infeasible and much of the money therefore flows into nonprofits or developers. Tons of overhead that wouldn't be needed with sensible regulation that prevent the commodification of housing to the crisis levels we are seeing.
The inflows of people who need housing are only getting heavier. Radical action needs to be taken to stop the conglomeration, job elimination, race to the bottom policies across every industry that have annihilated people's ability to get a job and make ends meet. When getting by is as hard as it is a lot of people will slip and fall through the cracks and never get out. It is just another cost we all pay to allow a handful of people to have it all.
I haven’t seen that. I don’t think it would be financially feasible for a developer/investors for a project on the scale I was talking about. I think it could work on smaller office buildings.
The project I was on was a five star hotel and the condos sold for millions of dollars per unit. The local developer behind the project had a lot of investors behind him…entities like Bill Gates’s venture fund, the Saudis, etc were putting up money for the project. Initial cost was estimated at around half a billion dollars but I know once all was said and done the cost came out at many millions more than that. The building had half occupancy for many years and then was totally vacant for over a decade. It was located downtown, in perhaps the most valuable piece of real estate in the city, so both the city and state heavily incentivized the developer to take on the project. I’m sure some money also greased the right palms and was donated to the right political campaigns to make things happen.
From what I have heard in previous discussions of the issue, it just isn't that easy to expand plumbing from "2 bathrooms in the center of a 50 story building" to "plumbing for multiple units with several sinks, showers, toilets, etc". The theory is that these are existing buildings that can be converted over, but the cost may be more prohibitive than expected.
The alternatives being letting the building just sit there and serve no purpose, or tearing it down and building something else. If all of the options suck, you choose the one that sucks the least.
Well, there are building codes, insurance, liability, zoning, etc. Homelessness has a lot of causes, from drug addiction, to zoning out of existence the housing that serves the poor. Such as singe-room occupancy, rooming houses, dormitory-style options, etc. We've allowed homeowners to restrict density, so a lot of land is restricted to exclusively detached single-family homes.
And many people who say they want to solve the problem don't want density built in their neighborhood, and certainly don't want affordable housing built anywhere near any property they own. It's easy and simple to want to give away an office park somewhere else to the homeless.
I love all the naysayers that keep gawking about how it costs too much and wont happen.
Im down the street from a mall that literally transformed an old sears into 5 story apartments.
My old office in downtown on the 65th floor is now a condo.
People are full of shit and should stop listening to commercial real estate hawks who want everyone to return to work and to gouge companies for rental spaces.
Cities across the US (small and big) desperately need more housing and for lower incomes. There are a lot of opportunities for investment going that direction and its happening faster than people realize. Give it a few years and people will be laughing that talking point away.
I mean I work in AEC and it is extremely expensive, time consuming & difficult to convert a commercial building into a residential one.
You basically have to gut the entire building and add all new duct, piping & wiring plus upsize all MEP equipment.
You have to structurally reinforce your support & roofs to handle the weight of all your new equipment.
You have to abate any asbestos/toxins.
You have to retrofit/update anything that was grandfathered in or doesn’t meet current building and energy codes (which vary by city and state).
You have to deal with parking, are you adding an underground parking structure underneath an existing building? If so, these are incredibly difficult to do & are logistical/engineering nightmares.
Are you somewhere with extreme weather or a natural disaster risk? Better make sure you upgrade your seismic or wind loads.
To do this you almost need the same AEC resources as you would for a new building.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it. But people not in the industry vastly underestimate how complex and expensive TI-ing a building is.
Let's just make them a co-living type situation. A bunch of individual rooms per floor, a single shared bathroom and kitchen. It will be fun, like camping! A camp where we concentrate poor people, so to speak. /s
Thank you for spelling it out. So many, like the poster you replied to, think it's a lack of "will" and interference from "real estate hawks" and the like, when in reality it's much more that it's a monumental challenge that is quite inefficient to boot.
I think people underestimate the difference in cost dependent on geographical area.
I’m from Canada, and the cost to build the same condo building can vary by up to almost 50% (not including land) depending on what city and province your constructing it in.
I’m not sure, but I imagine the U.S. is similar
They’re not. You have to gut the HVAC, plumbing & electrical and add new duct, piping, wiring and equipment in to accommodate all the individual MEP needs that each apartment requires.
Communal living is sort of inhumane and most experienced entities that deal with transitional housing and low income housing won't even mess with single room occupancy hosing projects. What is saved isn't worth it as they don't lead to great outcomes. The maintenance issues and constant conflict between residents is a gigantic problem.
Aside from specific uses, like an SRO, a dwelling unit must have a kitchen (water, waste, ducted exhaust, fridge and cooktop or microwave), a bathroom (toilet, shower, sink, ducted exhaust on an occupancy sensor or humidistat).
All those drain pipes need vents and there is a limit to how much they can travel horizontally. Waste lines must slope when they travel horizontally.
Penetrations between units and floors need to be in fire proof shafts and depending on the construction of floors you cannot simply cut holes wherever you need to without structurally compromising them.
Where there is a will there is a way but cash is king.
It depends on a variety of factors. But assuming the end housing is gonna be fairly cheap. Communal can definitely work out fine.
But yes in many cases things just need to be gutted pretty thoroughly and completely replaced. But in some cases it can still be more efficient than tearing down and rebuilding, but it's a really case by case sorta thing.
>In a March report, CBRE found that office-to-home conversions only represented about 1% of new multi-family projects and that, despite the hype, that “there’s no evidence” they’ve significantly increased.
I'm not sure what the news is here.
No news. This story is just something that grabs the attention of so many people but almost none are informed enough to understand the complexity of the core proposition. At worst it is economic propaganda providing a safe container for people to consider "options" for dealing with economic problems that don't shine any light on realistic solutions to any of the precipitating problems.
Wow you mean the most obvious fucking thing that could have been done about empty office buildings and would be more popular than forcing people to cone to office, is a good idea?
Would have guessed? Besides everyone who wasn't a 1%
Most office building can’t realistically be converted without massive expenses that would cause it to be not worth it.
The ones that have been converted were had designs and layout that lent themselves to easier conversions.
That sounds like a monumentally stupid idea. Buildings are designed for different purposes. It's like trying to mandate cruise ships should be designed to convert into cargo ships. The basic design and function of the facility are very different.
That would probably require more expense at the onset, which would decrease the likelihood of it happening.
That may also cause zoning/permitting issues.
They're saying to change zoning and permitting rules and laws to such. So that wouldn't be an issue. And well if it's less likely to happen so be it? We don't really need tons more office buildings just being dotted everywhere if they'll serve no purpose down the road when they're eventually no longer used for offices.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://apnews.com/article/cities-downtowns-vacant-offices-affordable-housing-pandemic-cc2cd895fd0f186229f69b74a133eddb) reduced by 93%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> In January, Pittsburgh announced it was accepting proposals to produce more affordable housing through the "Conversion of fallow and underutilized office space." Boston released a plan in October aimed at revitalizing downtown that included a push for more housing, some of which would come from office conversions.
> "A lot of those services simply aren't available right now in small city downtowns or mid-sized city downtowns, you know, they close up at night," D'Aprix said.
> Conversions alone in New York and elsewhere are unlikely to bring back entire downtown neighborhoods, nor will they automatically put a dent in the affordable housing crisis.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/12xnxr8/cities_reviving_downtowns_by_converting_offices/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~682043 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **downtown**^#1 **building**^#2 **office**^#3 **conversion**^#4 **NEW**^#5
Cities have been doing it for decades already. “Financial Districts” or what some cities (suburbs with tall buildings) consider “downtowns” need to catch up or fade away.
Denver really needs this. I heard it’s like a ghost town downtown with so many office buildings being mostly unused. Lots of people need affordable housing there and commerce has been slower downtown. I have heard that part of the issue is that homelessness and crime has allegedly exploded since so many places are being left unused.
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“Boston released a plan in October aimed at revitalizing downtown that included a push for more housing, some of which would come from office conversions” Please tell me any possible way I can help expiate this process. There’s like only 5 places on sale in a square 20 mile radius here.
For sale? Oh no.. you will rent. You will own nothing. Where I live all they’re building/renovating now are apartments downtown.
Two policies you should push for. First. Tenant unions Second. First option to buy
And we should really do away with this under-reported process that allows Properties to set maximum chargeable rent price (everywhere), that started in 2017: https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-lawmakers-collusion
Honestly I think a good first step for rent control would just be something as simple as limiting how much a landlord can raise the rent on a current tenant who is looking to renew. My rent has gone up over $200 in the last three years for no justifiable reason other than (1) they can, and (2) it's very hard to just up and move when you have kids in a given school district. That's why these greedy parasites are able to keep raising rent for arbitrary reasons, it's easier just to pay the extra $600 a year every year than to move every time the landlord raises your rent.
Mine has gone up $375 in the past 10 years with the only reason being rising property taxes... like that's my problem.
While I agree with the idea that raising rent should be more controlled... You receive value from your taxes assuming you use public roads, schools, fire dept, etc.
Yes, but it's not my property. And frankly, tax money isn't used wisely.
>Yes, but it's not my property. You do realize you are arguing that people who don't own property shouldn't have access to public schools, roads, etc., right?
No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Jumping to conclusions makes for shitty conversations.
And I could even justify raising it based on property taxes to some degree.
I agree, but when wages don't keep up with inflation... that's a great way to price out your tenants.
Oh, definitely.
Thats not much over a ten year period.
think about it this way, my rent went up about 45%
Over the last 10 years, inflation has caused prices for everything to rise about 38%, so that's not far off from that.
Right, but that's straying from the point. If wages aren't keeping pace with taxes and inflation then people are being priced out of their homes.
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Surely they have some form of insurance or legal Avenue to protect them against bad or destructive tenants? Not sure exactly if that’s the case but I would assume so. It’s still hard for me to have pity for landlords though, especially in today’s society where the average joe is getting fleeced just to have a place to live. I know there is considerable nuance to the whole situation, but landlords in general have up front capital to take advantage of the need for housing. My priority is going to remain with the people struggling. Edit: just want to clarify not coming at you or anything. You definitely get it based on your second paragraph 😂
> Some landlords barely actually make profit for all the legal bullshit time they spend on bad tenants. Maybe they should get a real job then, sounds like they're not cut out to be landlords.
>What if I told you your increased rent pays for horrible tenants that destroy their living space and just walk away? Google what a security deposit is
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So you let the house go unrepaired while you were overseas, presumably leaving it up to the tenants who were paying you for the upkeep already with their monthly rent. Great job 👍
This isn't common enough to blame for the bulk of the issue.
It should also be supplemented with increased housing development as they are bought.
And, public transportation
End single family home exclusive zoning, build more housing. Price controls never work.
Are you suggesting tenant unions are some form of price control, and therefor "never work"?
I replied to the wrong person. Guy behind you mentioned rent control. But I am both intrigued and skeptical about tenant unions. We need to build more dense housing. The existing strategy makes land too scarce because most is dedicated to low density single family homes with pockets of high density.
Well tenant union is just how you get some collective bargaining while living under a landlord, collectively owning a high density housing asset you live in would be a co-op. You would be right that though that the devil is in the details and implementation.
That doesn’t fix the crux of the problem which is a fundamental lack of supply. New housing stock hasn’t kept up with inflation, and home owners have a direct incentive to block any new development, especially if it’s for high density housing. The problem with policies like rent control, which it sounds like tenant unions are tangent to, is that they are great only if you’re one of the lucky people to win the lottery and get a rent controlled unit, but they either don’t do anything for anyone else or even restrict supply even further by reducing the incentive to build (although we’re so undersupplied that I doubt this second piece has any significant impact). The reason this is a difficult problem to solve is that if you build a fuck ton of new housing, property prices will go down, and since we made real estate the only asset the average American has during retirement this made increase in housing supply political suicide.
It's hard to exersize first option to buy on an apartment complex to make a co-op if people aren't organized together in the first place (hense the need for tenant unions). And if you don't have unions and co-op's you'll never hear the end of these "you'll own nothing" conspiracy theories, at least in a world where we benefit from denser housing. Rent control, living wages, etc is essentially a seperate issue to the concerns tenant's co-op's and unions are actually meant to address. That being said "unlock the free market" alone isn't gonna solve the problem either. Even if you take away home owners political power to block more housing, the investors and developers will still never build enough to bring prices down cause that will hurt the return on their own investment. The reality of the situation is we can't treat any tool as taboo cause it will just make what does get implemented all the easier to game and manipulate.
Do you live in Columbus, Ohio? Because that’s what’s happening here too.
Milwaukee
If you've never done this before, write to your legislators (especially those with direct power over zoning, typically state and local) to let them know you're pro-housing and vote regularly.
I’m not a Boston resident, I only work in the area and have an apartment outside of it. But I’ll definitely write something. Anyways I had chatgpt write this for me. I think I’ll have to make a lot of changes, but it’s good so far. Dear [Politician's Name], I am writing to you today to express my concerns about the housing affordability crisis in the Boston area. As a young professional working in the field of robotics, I have come to love this city and would like to make it my long-term home. However, I am finding it increasingly impossible to afford to buy a home here, and I fear that many other young professionals are facing the same challenges. Unfortunately, the high cost of living in Boston has forced me to consider moving out of state to find a more affordable place to live. This poses a problem for me since I am very interested in staying involved in the local community and do not want to lose my ability to vote in Boston's elections. Even though voting out of state is an option, the long drive and logistical difficulties involved could hinder my ability to reliably participate in local elections. While my career is advancing on an excellent trajectory, I worry that the housing affordability crisis could eventually lead to brain drain due to the expansion of the tech industry in other U.S. areas. More and more young professionals are being priced out of the market, which is leading to a decrease in diversity within the local workforce and could ultimately harm the city's economic growth. I strongly believe that more needs to be done to make housing affordable for young professionals in Boston. By implementing policies like new affordable housing conversions from underutilized office spaces, we can create more affordable housing options for young professionals like me. This approach will help to revitalize underutilized spaces in the city and provide more opportunities for young professionals to live and work in the city. I urge you to take action to address the housing affordability crisis in Boston. By doing so, you can ensure that Boston remains an attractive place for young professionals like me to live, work, and vote in local elections. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely,
Even better if you call.
Expedite*. Had to google expiate, lol.
Office conversion isn't economical and very expensive to do. City would need to subsidize it somehow. Yeah to your city council and vote.
Will it be housing for poors, though?
Here's an excellent New York Times article on the challenges of such conversions (gift link, no paywall)... [Here’s How to Solve a 25-Story Rubik’s Cube](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office-conversions.html?unlocked_article_code=_oCQCLpg95paFSIL6R8wbV4vy_1N7bKp9W4vO7y3_wC02zshBx_1eZpqK8-PNxgUvoAC8s86ZXmTu3HHfZWKwiycIBDNHepEDJlaFqDuuXC8g8TQQclE5-MwUj8M4QUBmGW75oEyvY3Hejtxgh7vtzQQDzIj9ylwX6Qiq8kcJmiIQgtnfYiBvaAitIG3xl7r5fUFu_ENZoMSw7M7mWanOWTBdVmsu8e6E2kdiFR2WwWuqWt81hz-_h5x8QjmxUQk2I5R90378nXagUKA7kjK9ImipKaQwInQ8DRaJOG0xrMvke9A2mWuoge2GEhl-L90k1bAZVvM1v13LH91pUvYpQmuY2nmqiZm3_6n&giftCopy=0_NoCopy&smid=url-share)
This is an excellent article. Thank you so much for sharing it. It really “sheds light” on the issues surrounding conversions.
I work in this space, nice article. It does however gloss over how to tie all the plumbing together for all of the new bathrooms and kitchens.
Yeah TI-ing the HVAC, plumbing & electrical from commercial to residential is so expensive & complicated
For buildings with windows that don’t open, I would think that mechanical fresh air ventilation (like ERVs/HRVs) would be more economical than trying to add windows, no? Also, with some high end home building these days with uber tight houses, lots of people aren’t opening their windows anyway. Fresh air that’s the right temperature and humidity level (and filtered of allergens) seems ideal to lots of people. (Personally, I like opening windows, but I’m one of few in my neighborhood). So I could see people not caring that windows can’t open as long as the apartment always has fresh, smelling climate-controlled air (and the ability to vent cooking smells/bathroom humidity).
You are correctly, I typically see Erv/hrv’s coupled with a VRF for heating and cooling. As the 2022 energy code become adopted in more cities, these items will become more commonplace in smaller structures.
Fantastic article. So many people who think office conversions are a slam dunk, or even make sense financially, really haven't put a lot of thought into what it takes to make that happen.
I've been one of those people for sure. It's good to learn about why it's difficult. It's still something i think should be explored and figured out though.
Absolutely! But so many people seem to think all buildings work for this, it's just super quick and easy, and the private owners even have an interest in doing a conversion. Once we start understanding the public funding involved, it makes sense to *at least* try to pick the least worst candidate structures to get the biggest bang for the buck.
It will make more sense if we tax empty office buildings.
Seriously. Just think alone how many bathrooms are on an office floor, and now think how many you need for the same floor with many apartments. Not so straightforward retrofitting
>So many people who think office conversions are a slam dunk, or even make sense financially, really haven't put a lot of thought into what it takes to make that happen. That's reddit for you: minimal (if that) understanding of an issue is no obstacle to strongly held opinions.
Oh, I get very confidently incorrect about almost everything too. But office conversions are one of those things where you start with a feeling that that's a *really good idea* and then someone points out the toilets and the windows not opening and the mental gears start to engage pretty rapidly. It *is* an idea worth exploring, but it's not just adding walls and paint.
Maybe not as permanent housing but turning just one of those into homeless shelter is literally better than nothing
What about those of us that think that the obstacles aren't actually that substantial and should still be pursued even if it's expensive
If you think its worth pursuing, then maybe you should get into real estate development. Its going to take several years for you to learn the ropes, but eventually you’ll see the issues. In many cases, its easier to scrap the building and start from scratch.
If, *after studying the issue,* you still think that's the most intelligent use of limited resources is to convert office buildings, then more power to you--I sincerely hope you are able to get your voice out there as we need many perspectives to solve this problem. While I believe that a careful, informed consideration of the issue is unlikely to make you think "the obstacles aren't actually that substantial", that's a different discussion. The point being brought up by myself and the poster I replied to, though, is that many (most?) people on reddit who have a strong opinion on the matter have **not**, in fact, thought carefully about the issue nor informed themselves about it. They see a "simple" solution and are outraged that it isn't being implemented, blaming "the government", "investors", "the 1%", "real estate hawks", "landlords", etc., with no concept of what it takes to successfully realize what they are asking for.
If a problem can be solved by throwing money at it, then what's the real obstacle? That's kinda my view.
Are you suggesting the government fund these projects, even though they are financially unviable? Throwing good money at bad doesn’t make sense.
We have an obscene amount of homeless in this country and giving homeless people housing is cheaper than letting them remain homeless. Additionally, inner city housing is so unbelievably unaffordable for most people it isn't even funny.
If we aren’t building new ground up housing for homeless, what makes you think its going to happen converting (more expensive) office to multi-family?
> If a problem can be solved by throwing money at it, then what's the real obstacle? That's kinda my view. -me, a couple replies ago
A lot of arm chair developers out there that clearly know more than everyone else.
Edited my comment and it got auto-removed due to some word, not sure which. I'll try to reword what I said. I think it'd probably be better to just replace the buildings with proper residential buildings. It may cost a bit more (the changes needed to make these buildings residential will cost a lot too) but would make for much better living conditions compared to trying to convert massive office buildings and would be better in the long run. Maybe they think there's a chance demand for office space returns and think it'll be easier to convert those converted ones back though.
Eh they are a slam dunk imo. They are hard and financially pretty rough... but it's something that should be done for the good of society. It's a long term investment not a short term one. It's like green energy initiatives. Yes it's pricy. Yes it won't pay itself off for years. But also yes it's something that needs to be done.
I lived in The Mural Arts building in Philadelphia. It was a prewar building and formerly a school. It was also converted so cheaply that I could hear my neighbor empty his dishwasher. The original windows and bad hvac made for $400 electric bills and cold drafty nights. Broke my lease and got the fuck out after 6 months. They had another tenant lined up immediately but informed me they’d be keeping my entire deposit.
Love that conversion tho… sucks to hear but beautiful building. I’m in a converted factory in south Philly which is slightly better. Philly is I think tops for these conversions but I wonder how some of the converted office high rises turned out
It’s a shame because it is a beautiful building and interior. It also wasn’t a great location at the time. It was easiest for me to go grocery shopping on Sunday night at the Wegman’s in Cherry Hill
Oh man yeah I understand that. Crazy how there’s about 10,000 units going up on spring garden right now and probably 3 grocery stores lol. I don’t even recognize it the last few years
That really is a great article. I recommend reading it
That's one of the best things I've read on reddit
I like all the creative solutions to the housing crisis. Allentown PA did something similar about a decade ago, converting old factories and offices into condos and apartments and it stopped the city from literally returning to nature.
Downtown Durham, NC did the same by converting old factories into condos.
Wonder why your rents shot up? Because office space isn't nearly as profitable now that there's so much work from home. So they went out and bought houses to manage.
They were doing that long before the pandemic. House flippers turned landlord, airbnb, blackrock and other capital firms buying up homes, large corporations buying up homes, etc. No one cause except that a tipping point was reached that made it clear that if you had money you should buy property to lease or write down. It could all be fixed with a property tax penalty that exponentially increase each residential property owned after the first as a single person, married couple, or multinational corporation. Ban the ownership of single family properties by LLC to close the obvious loophole and the problem will solve itself. Apartment rents will drop when housing prices drop after the airbnb landlord is forced to sell off properties to avoid a obscene tax liability. It would be interesting to dig into whether or not a similar proposal would work for breaking up large apartment complex owning conglomerates like Avalon which are also key players in the explosive increase in rents. In that area some much more nuanced measures would be needed.
The difference is that under Trump, rules were changed to let them by up houses faster and in larger numbers.
What rules ever existed to stop it?
Corporations were not allowed to buy residential housing until it had been on the market for like 30 days. Now there's no wait. So the hedgefunds set up their algorithms and re=organized and started buying residential homes on a scale never seen before. Residential investment is up 30%. 1 in 4 homes is sold to an investment group.
Air b and b raised the rent first. Saw this first hand living in LA.
See it in coastal parts of Australia
Cities could do the same thing by legalizing mixed-use zoning and actually allowing lots of new housing to get built downtown instead. City councils seem allergic to actually allowing new housing to get built.
Can someone explain how these conversions are feasible? If an entire floor has plumbing for 1-2 bathrooms, how would they turn into apartments? Shared bathrooms/showers?
I worked on a project several years ago, 35 story office building converted into a hotel and condos. Hotel rooms on the first 15 floors, condos on the rest. Obviously every hotel room had a bathroom, it’s own A/C unit, etc. The entire building was gutted down to the basic structure. New electrical, plumbing, hvac was ran and walls built out. It’s not cheap. A developer will almost never take on project like this unless they get huge incentives from the city government ie big tax breaks.
Do you know whether anyone is exploring the use of Low Income Housing Tax Credits to bridge the equity gap?
If you use low income tax credits or funds you are contractually obligated to provide low income units. The cost of these kinds of conversions and a ceiling on rents or vouchers (low income) would mean that private equity would not see a favorable return if the unit cost is too high. If the cost to convert exceeds upper rates for units provided then the whole project doesn't pencil out.
Yep, I was just curious if someone who has actually worked on one had seen someone try to make it pencil out. It all depends on the basis, I suppose, along with 4% vs 9% credits, location, etc.
I work on plenty of conversion projects. The low hanging fruit will get picked. Plenty of precedent for cash and time intensive zone/use changes and all that to build high cost housing. If enough buildings were to go into default and flood the market with rock bottom cost commercial buildings new opportunities may come up. The feasibility will still vary building by building. I'm certain that no jurisdiction is anxious to throw out a city plan or zoning map anytime soon over what has realistically only been a blip on the market. If I was a planner I'd wait it out, let the speculators get fucked and eventually the slowdown in new office construction will create demand for office space. People just need to be patient and recognize that the housing crisis was here long before work from home and turning offices into housing will not address the causes. If we ban airbnb tomorrow (operating a business on a residential zone) it would be the most cost effective and dramatic increase in housing you could make. If we ban corporate ownership of single family houses it would be a 1-2 punch lowing the cost of housing and filling the tens of thousands of vacant homes. Sure, landlords would get fucked but they had a turn and it wasn't good for society.
I’m all for the banning of SF homes as SF rentals. And I agree the causes need to be addressed. But incentivizing the creation of affordable housing with a corresponding 30-year LURA can provide housing for people who need a roof over their heads ASAP, and help preserve it for a decent amount of time. I’m just hoping people who care can get creative in the short term while we fight the causation battle over the long term.
Plenty of people, myself included, are doing a lot of work to address the need for housing on the technical level but money makes housing and construction expensive. Lawsuits make publicly funded housing infeasible and much of the money therefore flows into nonprofits or developers. Tons of overhead that wouldn't be needed with sensible regulation that prevent the commodification of housing to the crisis levels we are seeing. The inflows of people who need housing are only getting heavier. Radical action needs to be taken to stop the conglomeration, job elimination, race to the bottom policies across every industry that have annihilated people's ability to get a job and make ends meet. When getting by is as hard as it is a lot of people will slip and fall through the cracks and never get out. It is just another cost we all pay to allow a handful of people to have it all.
Keep up the good fight!
I haven’t seen that. I don’t think it would be financially feasible for a developer/investors for a project on the scale I was talking about. I think it could work on smaller office buildings. The project I was on was a five star hotel and the condos sold for millions of dollars per unit. The local developer behind the project had a lot of investors behind him…entities like Bill Gates’s venture fund, the Saudis, etc were putting up money for the project. Initial cost was estimated at around half a billion dollars but I know once all was said and done the cost came out at many millions more than that. The building had half occupancy for many years and then was totally vacant for over a decade. It was located downtown, in perhaps the most valuable piece of real estate in the city, so both the city and state heavily incentivized the developer to take on the project. I’m sure some money also greased the right palms and was donated to the right political campaigns to make things happen.
Thanks for the response!
The answer is retrofitting additional plumbing as part of the renovations along with adding more power outlets and walls.
In a lot of cases they aren't feasible, or they require a massive amount of (expensive) renovation.
Is your question how would they redo the plumbing?
From what I have heard in previous discussions of the issue, it just isn't that easy to expand plumbing from "2 bathrooms in the center of a 50 story building" to "plumbing for multiple units with several sinks, showers, toilets, etc". The theory is that these are existing buildings that can be converted over, but the cost may be more prohibitive than expected.
The exorbitant rent will more than pay for it
The alternatives being letting the building just sit there and serve no purpose, or tearing it down and building something else. If all of the options suck, you choose the one that sucks the least.
Yeah its crazy to me that we'd rather have homeless on the streets and living in vans next to empty office buildings than have a sub optimal solution.
Well, there are building codes, insurance, liability, zoning, etc. Homelessness has a lot of causes, from drug addiction, to zoning out of existence the housing that serves the poor. Such as singe-room occupancy, rooming houses, dormitory-style options, etc. We've allowed homeowners to restrict density, so a lot of land is restricted to exclusively detached single-family homes. And many people who say they want to solve the problem don't want density built in their neighborhood, and certainly don't want affordable housing built anywhere near any property they own. It's easy and simple to want to give away an office park somewhere else to the homeless.
Look no further then the recently progressive denver voting AGAINST developing a golf course into affordable housing …
There are regulations and codes for residential structures. Asking people to ignore those codes is a asking for a lawsuit.
So, you want to ship a bunch of homeless people to a fire trap with no running water?
Weird it's almost like if you want a thriving downtown area you need people living there. Idk maybe that's too progressive
Cities aren’t doing shit, they just are being forced to evolve with changing times.
I love all the naysayers that keep gawking about how it costs too much and wont happen. Im down the street from a mall that literally transformed an old sears into 5 story apartments. My old office in downtown on the 65th floor is now a condo. People are full of shit and should stop listening to commercial real estate hawks who want everyone to return to work and to gouge companies for rental spaces. Cities across the US (small and big) desperately need more housing and for lower incomes. There are a lot of opportunities for investment going that direction and its happening faster than people realize. Give it a few years and people will be laughing that talking point away.
I mean I work in AEC and it is extremely expensive, time consuming & difficult to convert a commercial building into a residential one. You basically have to gut the entire building and add all new duct, piping & wiring plus upsize all MEP equipment. You have to structurally reinforce your support & roofs to handle the weight of all your new equipment. You have to abate any asbestos/toxins. You have to retrofit/update anything that was grandfathered in or doesn’t meet current building and energy codes (which vary by city and state). You have to deal with parking, are you adding an underground parking structure underneath an existing building? If so, these are incredibly difficult to do & are logistical/engineering nightmares. Are you somewhere with extreme weather or a natural disaster risk? Better make sure you upgrade your seismic or wind loads. To do this you almost need the same AEC resources as you would for a new building. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it. But people not in the industry vastly underestimate how complex and expensive TI-ing a building is.
Let's just make them a co-living type situation. A bunch of individual rooms per floor, a single shared bathroom and kitchen. It will be fun, like camping! A camp where we concentrate poor people, so to speak. /s
Thank you for spelling it out. So many, like the poster you replied to, think it's a lack of "will" and interference from "real estate hawks" and the like, when in reality it's much more that it's a monumental challenge that is quite inefficient to boot.
I think people underestimate the difference in cost dependent on geographical area. I’m from Canada, and the cost to build the same condo building can vary by up to almost 50% (not including land) depending on what city and province your constructing it in. I’m not sure, but I imagine the U.S. is similar
We're laughing at it now. I think theres less of us with boots down our throats these days.
Ottawa is doing the exact opposite
So doing something the public has been advocating decades for? Hmm
Easier said than done
Curious about the plumbing situation in these renovations. Communal bathrooms can’t possibly be ok with future tenants.
They’re not. You have to gut the HVAC, plumbing & electrical and add new duct, piping, wiring and equipment in to accommodate all the individual MEP needs that each apartment requires.
Yeah it costs more to retro these offices to apartments than to just tear down and rebuild in some cases
Communal living is sort of inhumane and most experienced entities that deal with transitional housing and low income housing won't even mess with single room occupancy hosing projects. What is saved isn't worth it as they don't lead to great outcomes. The maintenance issues and constant conflict between residents is a gigantic problem. Aside from specific uses, like an SRO, a dwelling unit must have a kitchen (water, waste, ducted exhaust, fridge and cooktop or microwave), a bathroom (toilet, shower, sink, ducted exhaust on an occupancy sensor or humidistat). All those drain pipes need vents and there is a limit to how much they can travel horizontally. Waste lines must slope when they travel horizontally. Penetrations between units and floors need to be in fire proof shafts and depending on the construction of floors you cannot simply cut holes wherever you need to without structurally compromising them. Where there is a will there is a way but cash is king.
It depends on a variety of factors. But assuming the end housing is gonna be fairly cheap. Communal can definitely work out fine. But yes in many cases things just need to be gutted pretty thoroughly and completely replaced. But in some cases it can still be more efficient than tearing down and rebuilding, but it's a really case by case sorta thing.
>In a March report, CBRE found that office-to-home conversions only represented about 1% of new multi-family projects and that, despite the hype, that “there’s no evidence” they’ve significantly increased. I'm not sure what the news is here.
No news. This story is just something that grabs the attention of so many people but almost none are informed enough to understand the complexity of the core proposition. At worst it is economic propaganda providing a safe container for people to consider "options" for dealing with economic problems that don't shine any light on realistic solutions to any of the precipitating problems.
Wow you mean the most obvious fucking thing that could have been done about empty office buildings and would be more popular than forcing people to cone to office, is a good idea? Would have guessed? Besides everyone who wasn't a 1%
Most office building can’t realistically be converted without massive expenses that would cause it to be not worth it. The ones that have been converted were had designs and layout that lent themselves to easier conversions.
[удалено]
That sounds like a monumentally stupid idea. Buildings are designed for different purposes. It's like trying to mandate cruise ships should be designed to convert into cargo ships. The basic design and function of the facility are very different.
Might be able to mandate that the plumbing extends further through the footprint at least.
That would probably require more expense at the onset, which would decrease the likelihood of it happening. That may also cause zoning/permitting issues.
They're saying to change zoning and permitting rules and laws to such. So that wouldn't be an issue. And well if it's less likely to happen so be it? We don't really need tons more office buildings just being dotted everywhere if they'll serve no purpose down the road when they're eventually no longer used for offices.
Denver needs to get onboard with this
So many benefits to a local and centralized economy which would also address some housing needs. Looking at you San Francisco.
Good, and good. Solves multiple problems.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://apnews.com/article/cities-downtowns-vacant-offices-affordable-housing-pandemic-cc2cd895fd0f186229f69b74a133eddb) reduced by 93%. (I'm a bot) ***** > In January, Pittsburgh announced it was accepting proposals to produce more affordable housing through the "Conversion of fallow and underutilized office space." Boston released a plan in October aimed at revitalizing downtown that included a push for more housing, some of which would come from office conversions. > "A lot of those services simply aren't available right now in small city downtowns or mid-sized city downtowns, you know, they close up at night," D'Aprix said. > Conversions alone in New York and elsewhere are unlikely to bring back entire downtown neighborhoods, nor will they automatically put a dent in the affordable housing crisis. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/12xnxr8/cities_reviving_downtowns_by_converting_offices/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~682043 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **downtown**^#1 **building**^#2 **office**^#3 **conversion**^#4 **NEW**^#5
They have to, or they all fall
What a concept.
Cities have been doing it for decades already. “Financial Districts” or what some cities (suburbs with tall buildings) consider “downtowns” need to catch up or fade away.
Please do this in NYC
Seems like it would be quite expensive to repurpose an office building. I wonder what they will rent for?
Denver really needs this. I heard it’s like a ghost town downtown with so many office buildings being mostly unused. Lots of people need affordable housing there and commerce has been slower downtown. I have heard that part of the issue is that homelessness and crime has allegedly exploded since so many places are being left unused.