overpriced and overhyped

I had a interesting and long coversation with a developer

Real estate guys just can't imagine not doing real estate. My guy here just bought a $200k building for storage because the shell value of the building is over $400k.

In his mind he made $200 buying it. There entire world is based on their relationship with a bank. I kept pressing whether he felt there was a run to the exits but I think that becomes an impossible scenario in his mind.

He said he has some equity in another company he has never pulled and wants to chat about it. Otherwise these guys aren't liquid other than rents despite having millions of dollars of assets they have to maintian.

He sees a doom loop in the local tax valuations od commercial vs. What the market will buy the property for.

I see it as there isn't a way for tenants to keep paying inflated rates because of underlying economy. With vacancies someone has to blink. If values drop, cities turn to homeowner to make up the tax shortfall... who don't have a dime to spare. City goes to shit..tenants leave, more vacancies, less tax, more shit cycle.

I run a industrial distribution business and I have long struggled with the idea of buying our own property. I would have to more than 10X our business to cover the increased fixed costs plus I’d have the EPA OSHA and probably a dozen other acronyms up my ass. I prefer to keep it lean and used third party warehouse space. Surprisingly prices for that have not moved up nearly as much as commercial real estate.