Is it true that WeWork is now the largest single lessee of commercial real estate in the US? Seems like a bad bankruptcy could have some broad ripple effects.
I should create a business to facilitate the transition from WeWork to leases, for the landlords. In 2 months I’ll be an intermediary worth... about 2bn.
I’m joking, I’m sure the CEO already has a reversion clause in the lease contracts, that leases should fall in the hands of his 3rd company in case of WeWork bankruptcy.
Well people are actually using the offices so prices will go down if they backrupt but they'll catch up. It would feel like an adjustment and not a bubble bursting.
It's anecdotal but I've been in half a dozen WeWork properties in the last 2 months and I've yet to see one more than 50% occupied. There were a couple buildings in Seattle that seemed almost empty.
Despite all their shortcomings (and I have ranted about them on here a lot in the past), the seem to have close to a 100% occupancy in Berlin. It does often look like they are less occupied though (partial empty offices) because the claim of "you can easily move to a bigger office" isn't true and companies rent offices that are bigger than they need them to be.
Doesn't Walmart own most of their real estate though? If so, they wouldn't be in the running for largest commercial lessee. Although it wouldn't surprise me if Walmart does have the largest square footage of commercial real estate, if you count parking lots & distribution centers it would be huge.
Another odd thought--would you count an oil company like halliburton's well leases? I know that square footage is normally used for buildings as to account for multiple stories, but if we count commercial land leases then either an oil/gas company or a large agribusiness would almost certainly come out on top.
