market misjudgments in real estate(1)

In the early 1970s most downtowns of the united state witnessed the completion of office buildings that set new records in size, height,and cost.Unfortunately \,many of the very buildings that defined new skylines for U.S. cities also defined new levels of financial loss because they fell far short in occupancy. In Atlanta,Miami,Minneapolis ,and many other cities, the largest building on the downtown skyline was also the largest economic disaster. On the island of Manhattan,alone,the office market became so overbuilt that the resulting value of the new structures fell to approximately a billion dollars below their cost of construction. What is most intriguing about this office market disaster of the mid-1970s was its repetition in even larger terms little more than a decade later.By the end of the 1980s the average occupancy of major office buildings across the united states was falling toward a devastating 80 percent after a new building boom added more than 30 percent to an already ample supply.