The people shorting malls have already made out like bandits. Mall operators are very close to bankruptcy. Macerich down 85% in the past five years, Simon down 70%, Alexander Baldwin down 70%...it is already over. Once these places lose their main tenant, it all shuts down.

You haven't been hearing it twenty years either. Some people were putting on this trade in the early 2010s but this trade really picked up around 2018/19, when it became apparent that the situation was irreparable. Before that point, the "smart trade" was long malls...most of these people got wiped out (Bill Ackman more than once in TGT than JCP, Lampert in Sears...the trade that worked in 2004 went to zero by 2014).

You can also look at countries which have higher online share of retail, they are further down this path. In the UK, these places are just being boarded up (retail parks, what you would call strip malls in the US are thriving however). One mall near me with tens of units traded for $200k, that was worth $10m a few years ago. The largest mall operator (which owns almost all the top 20 largest malls) is in BK.

But the easy money has been made. Yesterday's news. The money is in redeveloping/converting these places into mixed-use and offices.