This is interesting - I would not have expected the billionaires row buildings in Manhattan to face losses in the $1b range, but I can't say I'm surprised. We all know half the units in those buildings are sitting empty, though someone does own them. The One could easily head in that direction. But another scenario could unfold in an attempt to turn profit or at least break even here -
- cancel all the existing sales and return deposits (or perhaps just pull the remaining inventory off the market, since it's mostly units above the 50th storey that haven't sold) - this could also be a fun one for Tarion since there's a $200m+ charge registered on title as deposit insurance
- re-demise all the units (or just re-demise units above the 50th storey to create an extra 6 - 8 units per floor, since there's only 4 units per floor beyond floor 49)
- Below the 50th storey, it's 10 units per floor at roughly 80m2/unit. You can probably create another 2 units here - although that may impact your 2/3 bedroom counts, demising walls, etc
- You can create an extra +/- 300 units for instance by just re-demising the units above the 49th storey
- Sell the new units at $2,000+/sf... if possible in today's market
This is a long shot and it will piss off a lot of people, esp the ones who bought here. And these ppl could be pretty litigious. As well, I didn't do any cash flow analysis/proforma to determine whether this makes financial sense. But just throwing out what could happen or what I've seen happen in the GTA when builders cancel and revive projects