Economic Conditions - Nashville, TN, U.S., Global

[Mike G]

On 3/27/2020 at 1:43 PM, grilled_cheese said:

I wonder if people that have been searching for LTRs will be able to jump at this time or if it's too wild right now.

Watch us get  a bunch of STRs freed up but no LTRers are able to take advantage.  Oof

Anecdotally, an STR a couple blocks from me now has a "For Rent" sign out; I'd be cool if the Nations had fewer STRs.

[Mr_Bond]

11 minutes ago, downtownresident said:

Iran might also have greater issues with access to testing than most other countries. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/irans-coronavirus-problem-lot-worse-it-seems/607663/

There's a team at The Atlantic that is doing excellent journalistic work on the coronavirus.  This article focuses on what might be happening in Iran.

[smeagolsfree]

My guess is the numbers in Iran are anywhere from 10 to 20 times off the mark. Probably closer to 20 times off the mark. They have had the virus there longer, less sanitary conditions, less cultural understanding of how things work due to influence of their religious and government leaders, more prone to the rumor mill, (drinking contaminated alcohol as a cure for coronavirus), gathering in larger groups at mosques, religious pilgrimages, and the list can go on.

It will and has been going through this country like fire through dry grass. I think N Korea is in the same boat as they have not reported any cases and never will due to the government there, but the border between China and the DPRK is very porous, so there has to be cases. The population is very undernourished so they are very vulnerable to this type of disease already.  

I think the virus will be rampant in Africa as well once it gets a foothold there as there is very little testing or resources. It will be a disaster. The same goes for India as many return from the cities to the villages after all of the work has stopped in the large cities. That will be where the huge loss of life will be IMO.

The same can be said for some of the folks in this country who continue to meet in large groups and in churches regardless of what the authorities say. My message to them is let the chips fall where they may. They will have their regrets later and blame their church leaders. The same can be said for Jerry Falwell who reopened Liberty University after spring break. Foolishness on his part. Students and faculty are now testing positive for Covid-19. Again, let the chips fall where they may.  Many if not most religious institutions and churches have heeded the warnings and are doing the right thing.

I do have some very conservative friends that just want the economy opened back up so they can go back to work and do not think this is very serious at all and everyone is overreacting. I see their Facebook post from a friend of mine and just shake my head. They are still saying to this day its no worse than the flu and more people will die in car crashes and smoking cigarettes. I guess you just cant drive nails through someone with such thick skulls until it hits their household.

As for me, my rear end is staying inside as much as possible. I will order some food out and pick it up and really clean the containers off and then wash my hands. I order my groceries online, pick them up and then wipe them down before I put them away. I may still get this crud after all of that, but I am trying to do what I need to do and I do hope you guys are to.

[Mr_Bond]

15 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

The same can be said for Jerry Falwell who reopened Liberty University after spring break. Foolishness on his part. Students and faculty are now testing positive for Covid-19.

The Liberty University situation is another one where the truth is quite far from what was reported, and has changed since the news item hit but no follow-up story has been done (of course.  "Problem addressed" doesn't make news headlines like "There is a problem!")  I spoke with a student there who said almost everyone returned to campus from spring break, packed up their stuff, and went home.  The school did not extend spring break because they felt the students were more exposed to coronavirus while on break than they would be on campus.  Also, they have a lot of international students who may have a very difficult time getting home.  Their ability to conduct online classes is well-advanced since they have offered online degrees for several years.  The school is complying with city, county and state guidelines.

https://www.liberty.edu/students/health-wellness/coronavirus/

Speaking of eating out, Frothy Monkey in 12 South is doing a great job.  I pulled into a parking spot in the back, called the phone number as directed, and an employee brought out my order and set it in the my passenger seat.  Burger Up was not a pleasant experience.  I had to enter the restaurant and find a place to stand at least 6 feet away from several other customers waiting inside.  When I told them I had ordered online, they told me the kitchen would put my order in a case next to the kitchen door.  To reach the case, I had to walk within three feet of three employees.  No, thank you.

[titanhog]

38 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

I do have some very conservative friends that just want the economy opened back up so they can go back to work and do not think this is very serious at all and everyone is overreacting.

Yeah...I have a bunch of liberal friends saying the same thing.  

[Nash_12South]

Finally, Gov. Lee is instituting "Safer at Home" across the state as of 11:59pm, tomorrow. 

[21jump]

Hope everyone is staying safe. Out here in California, just about the only thing we can do is go to grocery stores and restaurants that offer take out only. All parks, trails, beaches, and ocean is closed in San Diego County. The mayor was hopeful that citizens would be responsible and adhere to "shelter in place" policies but that wasn't the case. There's now cops sitting in the parking lots of many parks and some on ATV's driving up and down the beaches. We pretty much have no choice here but to stay home or go on a walk. I, like several others, are (hopefully) temporarily out of work due to this pandemic, and it's excruciating sitting at home all day.  But the sooner everyone gets on the same page in regards to "shelter in place" or "safer at home" or whatever it's being called across the country the sooner we'll be able to get out and get back to our normal lives.

[Armacing]

23 hours ago, JoeyX said:

 

Like what?

Somewhat hard to predict the future at this early stage, but I would say at a minimum we could see a rise in isolationism, rise in socialism, and a rise in authoritarianism.  I still think if testing and travel bans had been aggressively implemented at a ridiculously early stage - like so early that people would think authorities were actually insane - then the infection could have been limited.  But that's all in hindsight now...

Nevertheless, government authorities are supposed to anticipate problems and adequately prepare for them.  That's part of the job description.  The public will not be in a forgiving mood when they step up to the ballot box, and I think it stands to reason we will see dramatic and extreme upheaval politically as a reflection of the dramatic and extreme upheaval we see in the economy and people's daily lives.

[VSRJ]

I've spent a lot of time asking myself what this means for the local economy long term — assuming we see a vaccine produced within 18 months. Will the effects hinder Nashville's development boom? What about apartment/condo units that are coming online in the interim? Are projects already under construction going to stall?

So many questions, and I know no one has the answers. All I have as a point of reference is the recession (which I was mostly unaffected by due to being in college), but this is such a wildly different beast. These are scary times.

[MLBrumby]

24 minutes ago, Armacing said:

Somewhat hard to predict the future at this early stage, but I would say at a minimum we could see a rise in isolationism, rise in socialism, and a rise in authoritarianism.  I still think if testing and travel bans had been aggressively implemented at a ridiculously early stage - like so early that people would think authorities were actually insane - then the infection could have been limited.  But that's all in hindsight now...

Nevertheless, government authorities are supposed to anticipate problems and adequately prepare for them.  That's part of the job description.  The public will not be in a forgiving mood when they step up to the ballot box, and I think it stands to reason we will see dramatic and extreme upheaval politically as a reflection of the dramatic and extreme upheaval we see in the economy and people's daily lives.

Yes... and among my and my wife's FB groups, we've noticed a serious lack of confidence in government to protect anyone from anything now. The latest has been the incessant mocking of Gov. Cuomo. What started out as informative and necessary pressers a couple of weeks ago have become embarrassing rants to many. A partner in our firm who is from Manhattan and still has an apartment there was a loyal supporter of Cuomo, and he can't start a meeting now without making a crack about him. 

[markhollin]

Personally, I find Cuomos's press conferences much more informative Trump's.  

[MLBrumby]

I find them both overlong, excessively political and moderately informative. IMHO Cuomo's have the added tinge of whiny complaining. Granted, some of that comes from his regular honking goombah accent  . 

Edited March 31, 2020 by MLBrumby

[smeagolsfree]

19 hours ago, Nash_12South said:

Finally, Gov. Lee is instituting "Safer at Home" across the state as of 11:59pm, tomorrow. 

Too little, too late! These are just suggestions and not orders. He needs to issue executive orders and he is not doing that. I give Andy Beshear of KY better marks by far for handling things than I do Lee. Beshear gets an A, Lee gets an F. I see nonessential businesses open right now like a boat Mfg. comp. in Ashland City, and a counter top company as well.

I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican guys. I look at leadership and I see very little coming out of TN right now even with this last order that he did only because of political pressure. He got slammed on Twitter after the OPED he did in the Tennessean Sunday.

[Nash_12South]

37 minutes ago, smeagolsfree said:

Too little, too late! These are just suggestions and not orders. He needs to issue executive orders and he is not doing that. I give Andy Beshear of KY better marks by far for handling things than I do Lee. Beshear gets an A, Lee gets an F. I see nonessential businesses open right now like a boat Mfg. comp. in Ashland City, and a counter top company as well.

I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican guys. I look at leadership and I see very little coming out of TN right now even with this last order that he did only because of political pressure. He got slammed on Twitter after the OPED he did in the Tennessean Sunday.

Gov. Lee is also getting poor marks in the national press for his "suggestions" rather than orders.

I heard a good explanation for going hard, state wide, on the shut downs. Our currently less affected counties have hospitals with few ICU beds (if any) and fewer ventilators. They are used to sending sicker patients to the big cities for treatment. That will not be an option as our big cities hospitals get packed. They will be in a far worse place, if they can't delay the spread.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Nash_12South

[smeagolsfree]

CMA Fest is now cxled.

[downtownresident]

Just now, smeagolsfree said:

CMA Fest is now cxled.

Wow. 

[smeagolsfree]

Here is the link.

 

https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/03/31/cma-fest-nashville-2020-canceled-due-coronavirus-pandemic/2881819001/

[grilled_cheese]

Quote

The 2019 CMA Fest generated a record $65 million in direct visitor spending for its sold-out four-day festival, an increase of 6% over last year’s record $61.2 million, the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp announced today.

https://www.visitmusiccity.com/media/press-release/2019/cma-fest-generates-record-breaking-65-million-in-direct-visitor-spending

[Mr_Bond]

3 hours ago, VSRJ said:

I've spent a lot of time asking myself what this means for the local economy long term — assuming we see a vaccine produced within 18 months. Will the effects hinder Nashville's development boom? What about apartment/condo units that are coming online in the interim? Are projects already under construction going to stall?

So many questions, and I know no one has the answers. All I have as a point of reference is the recession (which I was mostly unaffected by due to being in college), but this is such a wildly different beast. These are scary times.

While this isn't an 'answer' per se, it is a path to an answer and perhaps a topic that we could cover in more detail in this thread.

We should split the discussion into the various market segments and reflect on each of those individually.  The downtown and midtown development primarily serves high income earners who do not have children of middle school and high school age.  Multi-family in other parts of Davidson county will attract a different demographic, or several.  New neighborhoods in surrounding counties will be attractive to families with children and those who can't afford to live closer in.  In other words, Nashville is big enough that we should think of the residential development boom in those segments and perhaps more.

Commercial and entertainment also deserve their own discussions.

[DDIG]

44 minutes ago, grilled_cheese said:

https://www.visitmusiccity.com/media/press-release/2019/cma-fest-generates-record-breaking-65-million-in-direct-visitor-spending

All these people who have done nothing but beotch and moan about our tourists will soon start to understand how valuable they are and why so many cities have been envious of us.

Edited March 31, 2020 by DDIG

[smeagolsfree]

Remember guys, the below comments are my opinion and feel free to disagree or add to. This is just me speculating.

Right now I think it is too early to tell what kind of impact the virus will have on the local development at this stage in the game. I certainly think hotels that were in the planning stage may be put off for a while.

We will definitely be in a recession for a while because of this because it will take a few quarters for the economy to rebound.

Retail and small business will be the big looser in this as they did not have the cash reserve the big companies have. A lot of restaurants will go out of business but new ones will take their place. This will also be a disaster for commercial retail leasing as many of these companies will not survive leaving tons of vacant space. The retail industry was already hurting before this and this may well have been the nails in the coffin and the dirt in the grave for many of them.

It is hard to say what kind of impact this will have on the housing market just yet either. It depends on how many people lose jobs permanently and how many of the jobs are temporary. If a lot of folks are left unemployed for a long stretch it will have a detrimental effect on the housing market. Rents will probably drop because people cannot afford the high rents being charged by many of the complexes around town. Many of these folks were already working 2 and 3 jobs trying to pay their rent or mortgage.  

The office market is a crap shoot at this moment. We could be a real winner here as Amazon seems to be a big winner from all of this and will probably come out of this much stronger than many other companies. We were very fortunate they were already building a facility here. Other companies will or may need to further reduce cost by relocating to lower cost cities and this may be where Nashville ends up becoming a winner. Again it is still hard to say because we just do not know how long this is going to last.

Manufacturing is another animal all together as some companies may relocate factories back to this country because of supply chain issues. We will have to see how that works out. The mfg. industry is going to take a short term hit as many folks just are not going to be buying goods for a while.

I think distribution and warehousing will be fine as we are still centrally located and the country may have changed forever because of this. People may end up ordering more online, thus needed more distribution warehousing.

[DDIG]

1 hour ago, smeagolsfree said:

Remember guys, the below comments are my opinion and feel free to disagree or add to. This is just me speculating.

Right now I think it is too early to tell what kind of impact the virus will have on the local development at this stage in the game. I certainly think hotels that were in the planning stage may be put off for a while.

We will definitely be in a recession for a while because of this because it will take a few quarters for the economy to rebound.

Retail and small business will be the big looser in this as they did not have the cash reserve the big companies have. A lot of restaurants will go out of business but new ones will take their place. This will also be a disaster for commercial retail leasing as many of these companies will not survive leaving tons of vacant space. The retail industry was already hurting before this and this may well have been the nails in the coffin and the dirt in the grave for many of them.

It is hard to say what kind of impact this will have on the housing market just yet either. It depends on how many people lose jobs permanently and how many of the jobs are temporary. If a lot of folks are left unemployed for a long stretch it will have a detrimental effect on the housing market. Rents will probably drop because people cannot afford the high rents being charged by many of the complexes around town. Many of these folks were already working 2 and 3 jobs trying to pay their rent or mortgage.  

The office market is a crap shoot at this moment. We could be a real winner here as Amazon seems to be a big winner from all of this and will probably come out of this much stronger than many other companies. We were very fortunate they were already building a facility here. Other companies will or may need to further reduce cost by relocating to lower cost cities and this may be where Nashville ends up becoming a winner. Again it is still hard to say because we just do not know how long this is going to last.

Manufacturing is another animal all together as some companies may relocate factories back to this country because of supply chain issues. We will have to see how that works out. The mfg. industry is going to take a short term hit as many folks just are not going to be buying goods for a while.

I think distribution and warehousing will be fine as we are still centrally located and the country may have changed forever because of this. People may end up ordering more online, thus needed more distribution warehousing.

 

Good overview. I also think of a massive development like Fifth + Broadway being blessed to still be under construction, imagine if they had just opened  or were about to and this happened? 

I also think a mayoral administration that was starting to be adversarial to business due to being in a booming city, is now going to have to do a total pivot and seek getting back to strengthening those partnerships and seeking opportunity. Sure would have been nice to have an Oracle as a done deal before all this came down.

What will be also interesting is if a number of projects put the breaks on and the economy recovers, there may be great demand on whatever likely minimal office inventory is coming online in a couple years.

 

 

[VSRJ]

2 hours ago, smeagolsfree said:

 

Thank you for your thoughts and insight!

[titanhog]

It will be interesting to see what the actual unemployment numbers look like by mid-summer...nationwide.  Gotta believe some companies will actually go bankrupt (who were already on the edge)...and some will start back slowly with slim staffs.  Could actually take us years to get back to early March 2020 employment numbers.

Will also be interesting to see what happens with the airlines and travel.

[Nash_12South]

How quickly we get back may be related to how bad it gets. 100,000+ deaths will likely mean we all know people who die. It could get pretty grim. Hard to get too excited. On the other side, a lot of people will want to celebrate the ending of the restrictions and Nashville could really boom...party time! Our conventions will take time to recover. We will likely be on guard for new surges for the next year, until a vaccine is ready. Lots to ponder. A tad stressful....

Edited April 1, 2020 by Nash_12South