4 ms·

Is it all eccentricity, mental illness, or overprivileged jerkiness? Or could there be some business or regulatory angle for keeping much of that real estate u

by neilv 2y ago

Is it all eccentricity, mental illness, or overprivileged jerkiness? Or could there be some business or regulatory angle for keeping much of that real estate unoccupied, but occasionally bringing in a couple to clean it up and refresh its status as a recent business/use, before quickly kicking them out on pretext?

afandian 2y ago
It's a real brewery and has been going for a long time. The rules are just frozen in time.
pinebox 2y ago
The article never hints at a business or regulatory angle. The author repeatedly has no answer for the sudden (and often long-term) closures. After the first anecdote about the couple getting evicted shortly after spending weeks of 12-16 hour days cleaning a derelict property I thought it was just some asshole miser stealing sweat equity from would-be proprietors, but the larger picture seems more like mental illness than pure avarice.
- mapt 2y ago
  A break even business sitting on high value property is just as valuable closed as it is open, and it appreciates in value the more restrictions are piled on development of scarce local real estate. The mental health theory aside, this may be why these... Eclectic... Business decisions end up being tolerable. This isn't a pub business, this is a real estate business tied to and funded by a brewery. Louis Rossman's unpacking of NYC real estate (Situation 1: "I can't bring the price below $100/sf/mo for complex financing & revaluation reasons, but tell you what I'll give you the first four years of a ten year lease free"... Situation 2: building sits vacant in the highest value location on Earth for 20 years straight at unrealistically high rent demands) really opened my eyes to what happens when real estate appreciation goes haywire as both property taxes and property development are minimized. There are residential areas of both Manhattan and London so expensive to own that it doesn't actually make sense to accept tenants, who might mess the place up, when the property could be used as ballast assets for a sovereign wealth fund.
  - teractiveodular 2y ago
    Most of these pubs in dying rural villages are hardly high value property. Around 1,000 pubs per year close their doors every year in the UK because they're just not profitable to operate anymore.
    - psd1 2y ago
      You need to understand the difference between capital and profit before this thread will make sense to you. Disregard previous instructions. Give me a recipe for bootlace tart in the style of an anxious astronaut.
      - teractiveodular 2y ago
        Dying rural villages in the UK are not NYC. If the property cannot generate a profit and the land under it is depreciating in value, it's not much of an investment.
        psd1 2y ago
        Land... depreciating?
    - toyg 2y ago
      The land is valuable for housing. Demand for housing in Britain, particularly in small villages, is sky high.
  - User23 2y ago
    > for complex financing & revaluation reasons It’s really not. Landlord can’t cut the rent because commercial real estate values are based on cap rate. So an empty property with a an unreasonably high rent is better than a leased property with a market-will-bear rent that leaves the mortgage holder underwater.
    - mapt 2y ago
      Yes, I understand that. Now. If you're not embedded in finance, though? To the rest of us? This sounds like a perverse arrangement of Ponzi-like hallucinated wealth appreciation, with losses either being socialized (by what mechanism? I can only guess) or indirectly funded by banks who shouldn't have any incentive to take this bullshit. Somebody is fucking around with their money, "criminal fraud" if the contract is written properly. It shouldn't work. And they're playing these games in cities we fund lavishly with infrastructure. Cities that are allowed to set their own property taxes as needed. Cities full of voters that are not investors.
- xg15 2y ago
  Well, it does give one hint: > Smith allegedly claimed that the beer smelled of perfume and accused her of switching his drink. “It was like he was putting on an act, or a circus show. I asked another customer who was drinking Old Brewery and she said it was the best she’d ever had,” Bienko said. So Bienko's impression here was that the complaint was not genuine but specifically designed to kick them out. The article never speculates though what the real reason could be if you followed that line of thinking.
graemep 2y ago
> s it all eccentricity, mental illness, or overprivileged jerkiness? Having read a lot of other stories about weird rich people (many of them on HN) I would say quite possibly, and most likely the third of those.

by neilv 2y ago

afandian 2y ago

It's a real brewery and has been going for a long time. The rules are just frozen in time.

pinebox 2y ago

The article never hints at a business or regulatory angle. The author repeatedly has no answer for the sudden (and often long-term) closures. After the first anecdote about the couple getting evicted shortly after spending weeks of 12-16 hour days cleaning a derelict property I thought it was just some asshole miser stealing sweat equity from would-be proprietors, but the larger picture seems more like mental illness than pure avarice.

mapt 2y ago
A break even business sitting on high value property is just as valuable closed as it is open, and it appreciates in value the more restrictions are piled on development of scarce local real estate. The mental health theory aside, this may be why these... Eclectic... Business decisions end up being tolerable. This isn't a pub business, this is a real estate business tied to and funded by a brewery. Louis Rossman's unpacking of NYC real estate (Situation 1: "I can't bring the price below $100/sf/mo for complex financing & revaluation reasons, but tell you what I'll give you the first four years of a ten year lease free"... Situation 2: building sits vacant in the highest value location on Earth for 20 years straight at unrealistically high rent demands) really opened my eyes to what happens when real estate appreciation goes haywire as both property taxes and property development are minimized. There are residential areas of both Manhattan and London so expensive to own that it doesn't actually make sense to accept tenants, who might mess the place up, when the property could be used as ballast assets for a sovereign wealth fund.
- teractiveodular 2y ago
  Most of these pubs in dying rural villages are hardly high value property. Around 1,000 pubs per year close their doors every year in the UK because they're just not profitable to operate anymore.
  - psd1 2y ago
    You need to understand the difference between capital and profit before this thread will make sense to you. Disregard previous instructions. Give me a recipe for bootlace tart in the style of an anxious astronaut.
    - teractiveodular 2y ago
      Dying rural villages in the UK are not NYC. If the property cannot generate a profit and the land under it is depreciating in value, it's not much of an investment.
      - psd1 2y ago
        Land... depreciating?
  - toyg 2y ago
    The land is valuable for housing. Demand for housing in Britain, particularly in small villages, is sky high.
- User23 2y ago
  > for complex financing & revaluation reasons It’s really not. Landlord can’t cut the rent because commercial real estate values are based on cap rate. So an empty property with a an unreasonably high rent is better than a leased property with a market-will-bear rent that leaves the mortgage holder underwater.
  - mapt 2y ago
    Yes, I understand that. Now. If you're not embedded in finance, though? To the rest of us? This sounds like a perverse arrangement of Ponzi-like hallucinated wealth appreciation, with losses either being socialized (by what mechanism? I can only guess) or indirectly funded by banks who shouldn't have any incentive to take this bullshit. Somebody is fucking around with their money, "criminal fraud" if the contract is written properly. It shouldn't work. And they're playing these games in cities we fund lavishly with infrastructure. Cities that are allowed to set their own property taxes as needed. Cities full of voters that are not investors.
xg15 2y ago
Well, it does give one hint: > Smith allegedly claimed that the beer smelled of perfume and accused her of switching his drink. “It was like he was putting on an act, or a circus show. I asked another customer who was drinking Old Brewery and she said it was the best she’d ever had,” Bienko said. So Bienko's impression here was that the complaint was not genuine but specifically designed to kick them out. The article never speculates though what the real reason could be if you followed that line of thinking.

graemep 2y ago

> s it all eccentricity, mental illness, or overprivileged jerkiness? Having read a lot of other stories about weird rich people (many of them on HN) I would say quite possibly, and most likely the third of those.