jason403
Active Member
I'm a little curious on what you think a tax write off is, as losing money on something and saving 15% on taxes isn't really a benefit, and is just a slight relief on a loss incurred. Is there something more to the story here I am not getting, because renting it out and paying tax is more beneficial than booking a loss 100% of the time.This is exactly what happens. The driver as I understand it is that once a commercial space is leased out at a high rent the landlord then leverages the "value" of the place for super low cost loans that they then leverage into buying more spaces. The paper value of their property is what drives their wealth growth, not the actual rent they collect. If they lower their rent to attract tenants then they lose money and their portfolio starts imploding, but if they leave it vacant they can write it off as a business loss for a tax benefit. I may be missing some nuances but basically the way we structure commercial real estate is messed up. It's why we have 1/3 of CRUs downtown vacant and yet rent is still stupid high with more under construction.