Actual Real Estate Stuff

Yeah, believe it or not.

First, ag land auctions.  Currently these are mostly retirement and estate sales with some foreclosures and bankruptcies mixed in.  Iowa is currently loaded with $15,000+/acre auction prices.  Even though commodity prices are flat and expenses are up.  Even though the American Bankers Association thinks only half of ag borrowers will be in the black in 2025.  So what's going on?  I have a strong suspicion the bigs are getting bigger.  They have cash and can get their hands on more, and they're turning it into dirt.  So yet more family farms are landing in the hands of agribusiness.  Which bodes ill for surviving small farmers, consumers, soil, water quality, name it.

Now on to office space.  Most law firms I know are reducing their footprint.  No reason not to given how much we can do remotely.  But the bigs are entering into big, new leases.  Why?  Because they can.  Because they know the legal industry is changing dramatically, and size means survival.  Because their corporate clients want image and are willing to pay for it.  Because they have hammerlocks on their employees and can force on-site work.

What we're seeing is yet more asset concentration to the detriment of all the rest of us.  I won't call this neo-feudalism, though, because it isn't.  There is no interlocking system of rights and responsibilities.  The rights have all floated up the hill, and the responsibilities have all rolled down it.  There are no holidays.  We're on call all the time.  There are no commons we have access to.  Any possible Third Space either has an admission fee or is locked down entirely.  We aren't peasants.  We're serfs.