I haven't scrutinized this heavily, but, at a glance, it appears that the best recovery for "Work Trips" is still down 13.2%, New York is down 26%, and the worst, SF, is down 32.7%. In no way do I see these numbers as booming - they all make me question how the cities are going to balance their books as commercial real estate gets devalued and undermines taxation.
Those numbers are almost a year old; NYC is expecting a significant rise in tourists[1] and for business travel numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels[2].
To my annoyance, rent has continued to rise as well.
Are you planning on owning commercial real estate? If not, why does this one particular metric matter?
NYC is booming in all senses of the word that apply to the daily experience of your typical person living here. The streets are PACKED with people out and about having a good time at all hours of day and night, and rents are at record highs because so many people want to live here. So what if not everyone is commuting into the office 5 days a week anymore? Don't buy an office building and you'll be good.
No, I am not planning on owning commercial, but I am interested in avoiding having taxes raised on me to fill a budget deficit. Taxes on commercial real estate generate a significant amount of revenue, commercial rental agreements are usually ~5-7 years, and so, at least in SF, there is a looming wave of devaluations which has yet to be realized. The city already has an estimated 800M budget shortfall without assuming commercial real estate devalues by 50%. When that happens the only quick fix is to bleed money from the populace. If commercial buildings aren't being used in NY then this will also occur there.
I think you're being too speculative here. If you're really trying to minimize paying taxes, then you should be moving to a state with no income tax, don't buy property there (because states with no income tax tend to make up for it with high property taxes), and don't live in a city because cities will have local taxes. But you move to NYC, you do so because NYC is awesome and living here is great. I wouldn't pay less taxes to live in the middle of nowhere.
> ... you should be moving to a state with no income tax, don't buy property there (because states with no income tax tend to make up for it with high property taxes)
Remember not to rent too, otherwise landlords would passthrough the high property to you.
This isn't true in many places for lots of reasons. E.g. in California the owner could easily have grandfathered-in low property tax thanks to Prop 13, that you as a new housing purchaser couldn't benefit from. Or there could be NY-style rent regulation that controls the allowable rental price and doesn't take property tax into consideration at all. Or it could simply be that property taxes go up in a neighborhood (which you'd have to pay if you owned) but that rents do not, for whatever reason; this happens all the time.
As a renter, all you care about is what the rent is. If the rent is good, then you're good. Property tax is very much NOT priced into buying a property, and is an ongoing expense to worry about that moves in way that rent does not.
Can confirm: packed streets, packed theaters, restaurants, etc - even the subway is recovering. NYC is going great aside from older, overpriced midtown buildings that are failing to lease.
I bike and walk most places, but I'm perfectly fine taking the subway for longer distances. Even that question itself sounds like it's out of the past from three decades ago.
I haven't scrutinized this heavily, but, at a glance, it appears that the best recovery for "Work Trips" is still down 13.2%, New York is down 26%, and the worst, SF, is down 32.7%. In no way do I see these numbers as booming - they all make me question how the cities are going to balance their books as commercial real estate gets devalued and undermines taxation.
Is that the wrong way to be looking at things?
(EDIT: these numbers are old, my bad!)