The old Wall Street adage goes: "Markets take the stairs up and the elevator down." But in commercial real estate, we're witnessing something more peculiar- taking the emergency exit stairs, one painfully slow step at a time. This fascinating piece from Bisnow.com explores why 2025 might finally force us to face the music in commercial real estate. 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟏% 𝐨𝐟 $𝟕𝟓𝟓𝐌 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐂𝐌𝐁𝐒 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐨𝐟𝐟, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝 - 𝐰𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐝. The "extend-and-pretend" strategy has become the commercial real estate equivalent of using your credit card to pay off another credit card. It works until it doesn't, and 2025 is shaping up to be the year when the music stops, and we find out who's been swimming naked, as Warren Buffett would say. It is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding why even the most prestigious institutional names are, as one expert puts it, "hitting the end of their rope." Sometimes, the most valuable lessons in investing come not from knowing when to enter the market but from understanding when the market has been living in denial. https://lnkd.in/eHxxzENT