commercial property – Impact Lab

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Real estate is supposed to be the bedrock of wealth building—solid, tangible, and reliably appreciating. Property values are supposedly determined by market forces, objectively assessed for tax purposes, and transparently priced. Real estate professionals are supposedly fiduciaries working in their clients’ best interests.

AI analysis of real estate markets is revealing something very different: a system built on valuation fictions, information asymmetries, and practices designed to extract maximum value from buyers while concealing risks and inflating prices. The data shows that much of what we accept as “market value” is actually carefully orchestrated pricing disconnected from underlying fundamentals.

The awakening in real estate and commercial property isn’t about whether property has value—it obviously does. It’s about revealing that the systems for determining, reporting, and transacting on that value have evolved to benefit insiders at the expense of buyers, renters, and taxpayers who can’t see through the complexity.

And now AI is making them see.

Empty offices sit above empty retail stores on Broadway in downtown Manhattan.

As commercial real estate continues to lie vacant around the U.S., it may contribute to a vicious economic cycle that reshapes our cities.

Adam Johnson enjoys going into the office. It helps that he works in one of the nicest buildings in Midtown Manhattan: a 35-story art deco high-rise at the corner of 58th Street and Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park and the Plaza Hotel.

Johnson’s a stock picker — he writes an investment newsletter called Bullseye Brief — and, ostensibly, he shares the sixth floor with a real estate showroom and an assortment of hedge funds. They all left months ago.

“I am the only person who’s been coming in here since April 1st,” he says.

Continue reading… “‘Do I really need this much office space?’ Pandemic emptied buildings, but how long?”

Tag: commercial property

The Awakening Series Part 10: Real Estate and Commercial Property—The Valuation Fiction