Gosh it to Pete! or By Lucifer's Beard

[jaybreak]

A similar thing happened in my general area, and very near me. Some outside companies bought buildings at a very low cost in the downtown area (not downtown Pittsburgh) where I live. They're not doing anything with it for a number of probable reasons: whatever they put in these buildings won't do well because of the area, they're basically squatting the property in the hopes of that the value will rise and they can sell it, and they have no personal interest in the area. It's a combo of all of these three reasons, I think, but the middle one, the speculation part, is what really motivates real estate devs that have a lot of cash to speculate. Think about it: you can buy a bunch of cheap property, spend nothing else on it, with the potential of high profit margins when the market turns around in the area. It could take a decade or longer, but it's low risk for them.

Not saying it's right or wrong, but that's the motivation, and the corporatist legislative climate makes it easier and lower-risk for companies to do this. It reality, I think it's wrong in most contexts, because of the ideas Ed hinted at above.