What is the most unexpected, Freakonomics-style data you've come across in commercial real estate?
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[{"id": "eus1k11", "text": "There is the usual big skyscrapers lead to recessions index. \n\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper_Index\n\nReal estate is a slow moving ship, so it is really hard to get direct cause and effect. \n\nFor instance, when the recession hit, rents continued to rise for about 6 months afterwords just due to inertia. Landlords do not like reducing rents, but once they do, everyone does. \n\nYou also get weird things where rising vacancy rates can lead to rising rents. You assume that there is a correlation between rents and vacancy and that it is negative, higher vacancy should put downward pressure on rents. But rents that are quoted are asking rents. And when you get a large chunk of space delivered to the market, that raises the vacancy, and that new chunk of space will also have a higher rent, thus rising asking rents as well. \n\nMost of the time the closer you are to a body of water, the higher the rents are. Unless that body of water smells. In which case the closer you are to the water the lower your rents are. That used to be the case in Chicago before they fixed the river. \n\nI have more, but you will have to pay me. This is what I do for a living.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]