Even if it dropped by 50% they still made a profit AND got interest along the way. Assuming prices stabilize, they bought the dip by default.
Granted, the question is, can they stop the local government from making things worse? Or can they profit off of the government by selling/renting the property to them for their Socialist causes?
Edit: The free market has little interest in the mall but the government has near infinite money that it can extract from its citizens to finance all kinds of boondoggles. There's plenty of money to be made in sham "industries" like the green stuff, "refugees" and so on.
The lenders don't pay 100% of the original value though. In the previous example, which has some numbers, they basically paid less than half the original value: https://kotakuinaction2.win/p/16bPQQRINI/-jingle-mail--725-million-boogal/c/
Even if it dropped by 50% they still made a profit AND got interest along the way. Assuming prices stabilize, they bought the dip by default.
Granted, the question is, can they stop the local government from making things worse? Or can they profit off of the government by selling/renting the property to them for their Socialist causes?
Edit: The free market has little interest in the mall but the government has near infinite money that it can extract from its citizens to finance all kinds of boondoggles. There's plenty of money to be made in sham "industries" like the green stuff, "refugees" and so on.
Oh you mean because the property has risen in value since the owners bought it?
In that case I agree with you.
But the thing is - the owners who usually mail the keys back are the ones with negative equity. Not the ones with positive equity!