22 ms·
Amazon builds property empire, quietly buying land across the US
- WarOnPrivacy 4y agohttps://archive.ph/4TpWD https://archive.ph/4TpWD
- zip1234 4y agoNothing wrong with buying property that they plan on using productively.
- fortyseven 4y ago
- criddell 4y agoWhat's good for Amazon isn't necessarily good for the rest of us. Maybe that land they are going to build a warehouse on should be reserved for agriculture or reforested.
- dymk 4y ago
- taylorius 4y agoYeah, that Blue Origin, man - just a LEO taxi eh? Sure Jeff, sure...
- zdragnar 4y agoSo zone the land as non-commercial. Don't finger amazon as the problem when it was going to go to one commercial entity or another anyway.
- googlryas 4y agoZoning laws already take care of that.
- iandanforth 4y agoI'm surprised that Amazon doesn't own apartment complexes. Build a multi-level basement as a fulfillment warehouse, then stack housing on top. The housing would have 10 minute delivery and be a great way to further accustom people to Amazon being the place to get everything.
- bcx 4y agoOr even better they could continue to vertically integrate their stack and provide affordable housing to warehouse employees.
- DesiLurker 4y agoalso maybe install nets around the joint building, you know for safety.
- trevcanhuman 4y agoah yes, just like in Asia
- kevmo 4y agoBack to the old ways, eh? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- G3nnaro 4y agoAmazons already building apartments at HQ2 and I believe Seattle as well - https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22593871/amazon-key-for-business-thousands-of-buildings-us-installation-incentives-privacy-concerns https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22593871/amazon-key-for-b... Amazon can't build apartment complexes on top of their warehouses because many of their warehouses are already 3 or 4 floors, and the obvious zoning issues of building complexes in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other warehouses.
- jgalt212 4y agoI'm old enough to remember when Amazon had an "advantage" over bricks and mortar operations because it was much less capital intensive. However, under ZIRP, having a capital intensive business (warehouses, data centers, etc) is a vast moat. Will this change as interest rates continue to increase?
- Vladimof 4y agoBut they charge people for warehouse space before they even sold their product, don't they?
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoWhat Amazon has now is much less capital intensive than trying to do anything equivalent with retail outlets.
- mywittyname 4y agoThey retain that advantage. B&M retail needs all of the warehousing of Amazon, but also requires low-efficiency retail space that services a pretty narrow geographic area.
- treis 4y agoI don't get how this is a story. Who wouldn't think Amazon is buying land for warehouses? And what exactly does it mean for them to be doing it "quietly"? Are they supposed to bring a marching band along everytime they look at property?
- Invictus0 4y ago> Who wouldn't think Amazon is buying land for warehouses? The people that read the article, which stated that for many years, Amazon was not buying land for warehouses.
- mikestew 4y agoI read the article, and look what I found, not two paragraphs in: "Amazon plans to use much of the real estate for a new generation of towering fulfillment centers that can store a wide variety of products close to customers in populous areas, according to people familiar with the strategy." So it sounds like Amazon is buying land for warehouses, might be reading different articles, dunno.
- pessimizer 4y ago"Buying land is a major shift for Amazon, which historically relied on a handful of developers to find property, build fairly simple warehouses and rent them back to the company." The comment was "Who wouldn't think Amazon is buying up land for warehouses?". The answer is anyone who was familiar with what Amazon was doing until 3 years ago. If you thought three years ago that Amazon was buying up land for warehouses, because it's so obviously obvious, you would have been wrong.
- treis 4y agoI did read it: >the company said there is no change in its long-term real estate strategy This is a made up non-story with a click bait headline.
- curiouscats 4y agoFrom the article: "Buying land is a major shift for Amazon, which historically relied on a handful of developers to find property, build fairly simple warehouses and rent them back to the company." That is the news in my opinion. They were renting before, in the last 2 years they started buying a lot of land (they still rent a lot too).
- ajb 4y agoI was much more shocked when I came across this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/b?node=26247109031 https://www.amazon.co.uk/b?node=26247109031 TLDR: Amazon has a hair salon
- thr0wawayf00 4y agoThis is interesting given that Amazon was recently reported to be trying to sublet 10M sqft of excess warehouse space[0]. If both of these stories are true, it makes me wonder why they're acquiring so much real estate. 0: https://www.techradar.com/news/amazon-now-has-too-much-warehouse-space-and-wants-to-sell-your-business-some https://www.techradar.com/news/amazon-now-has-too-much-wareh...
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- curiousllama 4y agoThey could just be leasing out space in locations where they overbought relative to short term needs, but expect to need the capacity later. E.g. project out steady 10% YoY volume growth with a 5-year real estate cycle for warehouse space, and you'd def get some medium-term regional overcapacity/shortfalls.
- charwalker 4y agoEX a small brewery building a 20+ barrel setup as that is the predicted need in 3-5 years then leasing or partnering use of half their facility while building their brand and distribution network. Then when ready they have the capacity to 'expand' without the costs of said expansion. For startups/new breweries it can be a double edged sword leading to high initial debt or overhead costs but with the right leadership/strategy/product it definitely pays out over time.
- raverbashing 4y agoProbably because Bezos can see through the short-sightedness of modern "opex-only" "best practices" Because for their purposes, it's better to have self-managed real-estate than depending on what might be on the market at a given time Does it make sense to rent a warehouse then get hit with a rent hike after 10yrs or something? No
- syntheweave 4y agoThey can achieve a faster last-mile experience if their facilities are closer, and this space is now in contention with Walmart already beating them to the punch on drone delivery. To compete with big-box retailers they increasingly have to act like one, which is a very deep change to their e-commerce business. There is a strong chance here that they get outcompeted.
- photochemsyn 4y agoAmazon company town. Born into Amazon baby diapers, raised in Amazon communal housing, worked at the Amazon warehouse, buried in an Amazon coffin. Rents extracted at every stage of the process. Look up 'feudal serfdom in medieval Europe' or 'company towns in the American Gilded Age' for similar projects.
- hilyen 4y agoPeople need to stand up to the corruption and wealth inequality, or this isn't just some far off concern, it will happen. These big companies are quite happily enjoying the same scenario internationally where workers live at their factories. Don't for a second think they won't do it here.
- gtirloni 4y agoI think you're exaggerating a lot here. Is this some dystopian short story?
- hilyen 4y agoread this https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/company-towns/ https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/compa... https://www.history.com/news/americas-largest-labor-uprising-the-battle-of-blair-mountain https://www.history.com/news/americas-largest-labor-uprising...
- gtirloni 4y agoI'm fully aware of such history. I'm asking if you think Amazon is doing this right now? Any sources?
- bregma 4y agoOr a Springsteen song?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 4y ago
- nominusllc 4y agoYou load 16 totes, waddya get another day older and deeper in debt jeff bezos dont you tell me that I cant go I owe my soul to the amazon stoooooore
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- selimthegrim 4y ago>Most listeners also buy: Bass Clarinet only $129.99 with free shipping
- nimbius 4y agomany may be too young to remember but Eddie Lampert did this with Sears in the 80s and 90s as a thinly veiled attempt to turn the company into some kind of obscure land broker. It did not end well, and serves to this day as a textbook example of ideology eclipsing principled, well researched business decisions. in the article Bloomberg attempts to invent reasons this practice is dicey for Amazon that dont involve "you arent a real estate company" but fall short. the regulatory landscape they paint simply doesnt exist in the places (texas) they want to buy land. the real reason is likely to prevent competitors from setting up their own warehouses, as Lampert frequently did the same thing by buying out anchors and real estate in an attempt to funnel customers back into sears during its declining era as it was being bled dry by VC style profit chicanery that doesnt involve store refreshes or new markets.
- Judgmentality 4y ago> being bled dry by VC style profit chicanery Don't you mean PE, not VC?
- nimbius 4y agocorrect! PE was more of a fever dream at sears as well. capex and opex was the most visible and agonizing part of his "vision" but certainly the 5bn in stock buyback he instituted makes harley davidson look like a food truck in comparison. under Eddie, sears made money by selling the idea and concept of sears on paper, not tangible products at the malls it occupied. the whole thing devolved from a value trap to many people outright calling Lampert a thief who orchestrated the downfall of Sears intentionally. three years ago he even threatened to stop payment of sears and kmart pensions during bankruptcy proceedings.
- Spooky23 4y agoI recall and interview where they spoke of returns as a profit center. I’m sure there was some sort of accounting bullshit that make 1+1=5, but in the end it’s bullshit.
- motbob 4y ago
- nonrandomstring 4y agoIt's just a wise way to store capital in a volatile investment ecosystem. Property rarely falls in the long run. If anything it shows that Amazon don't have much confidence in other areas.
- bcassedy 4y agoOr you could argue that they have too much capital and can't make productive use of it. Maybe taxation can help?
- Guthur 4y agoObvious propoganda, it's a public company, it does not purchase anything quietly it's public knowledge. Just because they're not running wall to wall adverts about the fact does not mean it's hiding anything. All these media outlets are doing everything, everything on the beck and call of those in charge and with an agenda. No article aimed at this level of society is done independent of those who wish to be in charge.
- Teandw 4y agoI think you have a severe problem of digging into things too deeply. This is purely semantics and your proclaiming some odd propaganda angle. Which is a bit odd really. The article/title is 100% accurate. They are quietly buying thousands of acres of land because they're not going around and talking of their masterplan. They're just doing it without saying anything. Just because certain information is public for those who seek it out, it doesn't mean it can't be done 'quietly' by the company. Like I say, it's semantics.
- nielsbot 4y agoWho is in charge and what is the agenda in reporting this?
- markdown 4y agoReal estate speculation is the bane of modern society. A land value tax is sorely needed.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoOr some kind of regulation limiting how much you can actually own. If we can regulate eg. radio spectrum (which is a limited resource too), why not land too?
- markdown 4y agoThis is very hard to do in practice. Bezos could spin up a thousand new companies within days and use them to buy property. Plus we shouldn't restrict ownership when that ownership is put to productive use. Buy up thousands of acres for for a ranch or to build factories is fine. Buying up land just to sit on it is bad for society, and that's a problem that LVT addresses.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoWell yeah, but you actually need cattle and have them graze there, or build factories, employ people and produce stuff there, so if bezos buys a plot of buildable land, he would get a 5 years (or whatever) time limit, to actually build and produce something there, or be forced to sell. If someone just buys land, and hodls it, without actually producing anything there, a 100% tax rate would solve a lot of problems.
- tmnvix 4y agoThe financial industry has hijacked and transformed capitalism. Less industrious and more rent-seeking. Adam Smith et al would be turning in their graves.
- noja 4y agoNobody saw it coming, the world's next theme park: Amazon World.
- cryptica 4y agoA couple of years ago, my stance was that the growth of mega-corporations would lead to economic inefficiencies which were 'as bad' as a centrally planned communist economy. But now my belief is that it will be worse because at least, in a centrally planned communist economy, there is some degree of socially beneficial collaboration between different industries... Here we have a handful of massive megacorps with distinct financial interests which are all trying to extract as much value from society by whatever means or excuses they can get away with... Won't this just lead us to China-style 'ghost cities'? Amazon knows how to build warehouses, so they will just build ghost warehouses so long as government money printers will subsidize it; they can keep monetizing warehouses regardless of whether or not the market needs them. The entire economy is turning into some kind of Bitcoin-like mining scheme except instead of wasting electricity, Amazon will waste mostly concrete, steel and workers' time... It's incredible that while most people can't afford houses to live in, Amazon seems to be building more and more warehouses... Megacorps are merely following the streams of currency from the money printers instead of following real consumer needs... Unfortunately, they have a lot of control over the money printers via their relationships with governments so they can make sure that they end up pointing towards wherever is convenient for them... They can turn a profit regardless of whether or not people need what they're offering. Just look at big weapon manufacturers; they wanted some big juicy government contracts (funded straight from the money printers) and look at what they got; another war! Governments are all too happy to hand out all that free, freshly printed money to their buddies. Plenty of profits generated from destroying net economic value. Vaccine manufacturers... Bill governments for billions of doses and then let governments worry about how to sell it to the public. Governments are systematically monetizing waste for the benefit of their corporate overlords with 0 concern for common social interests.
- samstave 4y ago
- abnerhorn 4y agoCould they be thinking about building charging and landing stations for future flying cars / drones?
- johng 4y agoMcDonald’s isn’t much different.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- heyflyguy 4y agoJeff Bezos owns a ton of land personally in and around Van Horn as well. Between him and Gates, it's staggering how much land these billionaires are buying.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y agoThat's why these companies must be broken down and nobody should be a billionaire.
- tiborsaas 4y agoHow do you imagine this happening? What would happen is that they would still own everything they have today, but in a more complex legal form.
- francisofascii 4y agoThis is why we need land taxes.
- Chris2048 4y agoBillionaires/bigcorps are probably better-able to afford taxed land than non-billionaires, and/or make profit from the land to offset the tax. Adding a tax-liability to land might effectively push more of it into the hands of corporates.
- moltar 4y agoDo they need to be buying it loudly?
- lprd 4y agoI'll go ahead and say it: Amazon is frighteningly large. Any time I visit a UPS store, the lines are out the door and most of the people are there to make amazon returns. I see amazon delivery trucks throughout my town - its incredible what Bezos has achieved but I fear its just gone too far. I'm only 32 and I've seen so many companies shutting down; partly due to consumer shifts, but also by amazon pushing them out of the market. The pandemic also caused a few big players to get thrown under, but it seems that amazon only grew bigger. The future looks strange.
- theklub 4y agoSadly our government doesn't protect us, I think there should have been an antitrust case a long time ago.
- babelfish 4y agoWhy is this scarier than Target or Walmart, each of which have a higher market share than Amazon?
- BbzzbB 4y agoFor what it's worth, neither Target nor Walmart have a wholly unrelated cash cow (AWS) to subsidize ventures into new markets at huge losses until market dominance is established.
- toma_caliente 4y agoThis is the big one here. Amazon has a completely unrelated market dominate business that lets them enter new markets at a loss until they crush everyone currently in that market. Amazon is honestly the first company that needs to be broken up. Split up AWS and Amazon market and this becomes a whole new ballgame.
- mijowi 4y agoFirst company that needs to be broken up?? What about all the other monopolies that were busted?
- Animats 4y agoAmazon has some flexibility here. They've been pushing some of their vendors to handle their own shipments, resulting in a whole Amazon reseller industry. Amazon can pull as much of that in-house as they want.
- gerdesj 4y agoAmazon have a colossal amount of cash sat in a variety of banks, investments and probably rainbows. It makes damn good sense to splurge, sorry liquidate, strange and probably slightly dodgy financial instruments into tangible thingies. It also makes sense to diversify your portfolio generally. Amazon also need quite a lot of strategically placed parcels of land for its warehouses, depots and what not. If I was Amazon, I would be buying land as fast as my grubby little paws could do so, with a healthy nod to debt to value. The beauty of this is when you have shit loads of cash at hand you can grab loads of long term investments like land and win/win and you even tend to find "incentives" from grateful local govt. In this game if you get bored of buying the usual stuff like London and Texas etc, you can also grab the bits of the Caribbean that the cruise sharks have left behind. Ideal for a party island. lol etc
- cwp 4y agoThe article notes that online sales growth has slowed, but honestly I don't think that matters. Amazon is building out their own logistics and that'll be useful to them even if online sales were flat. Even beyond their own deliveries, there could be an AWS-style business there.
- asdff 4y agoThe placement of the land for Amazon is very strategic. Those warehouses don't just happen anywhere. Usually they are also very close to a freeway ramp because this makes it easier to get product in and reach customers. A lot of other businesses like Costco favor these same parcels for these same reasons. You'd think there would be a lot of places like this, but to be honest these sorts of huge parcels required for these businesses are rare and valuable real estate in cities. A lot of places are pretty built out already and getting a huge lot like that zoned for this use, let alone near a highway that's near a population center, is not an easy thing. I'm betting there are only a couple dozen sites like that available on the market nationally at any given time.
- cardosof 4y agoEverybody with excess cash should be buying things with obvious scarcity and value, like land/gold/livestock etc. Companies are just doing the same.
- rossdavidh 4y agoThis. Amazon no doubt has reasons to buy land that it _might_ want to use for warehouses, etc., but they are also just stuffing money into real estate because it's an inflation hedge. The very beginning of the article admits that they were in competition with hedge funds for some of their purchases.
- helloguillecl 4y agoI partially agree with you. Specially with inflation coming out way. But I rather exclude gold and buy assets with cashflow only.
- cardosof 4y agoI agree, most assets in any portfolio should have associated cash flows, commodities are sprinkled here and there for the sake of diversifying though.
- JoshTko 4y agoPurchasing real-estate commercial or retail primarily for speculation should be taxed/disincentives. Basic needs with no alternatives should be shielded from speculation forces
- whatever1 4y agoAny unutilized land should be taxed heavily in dense areas. Empty appartment? Pay the equivalent of rent for taxes.
- LoveGracePeace 4y agoAmazon is 1.5 TB, so is Microfuck and Google and I think Facebook...why is Amazon being targeted? Microsoft has been the root of all evil since Gates was born, or a few years thereafter. Gates is buying America's farmland, Google it. Google Google doubling, trippling its commercial real estate holdings. When Clinton decided to become chummy with Gates as Clinton's career was ending and miraculously the DOJ stopped working on breaking up Microsoft, it paved the way for Google's and Amazon's and Facebook's monopolies.
- steve76 4y ago