I can only suspect divorce rate will climb too.

Salesforce found that with Covid and people working from home, they actually did 3 more hours of work a day on average. Employees were accessing their salesforce accounts all hours of the day and night. This might seem like a perk for businesses to keep people working from home.

It won't be no offices - it will be smaller, more efficient spaces with a hoteling setup. Less private offices and more open workspaces with a lot of meeting rooms. Spaces will be available to reserve via an app.

Also, the need to live close to the office for some will become unimportant. Those paying SF, LA, NY real estate prices for their home will be able to relocate to less pricey markets as long as they have access to airports.

Both commercial and residential RE prices are going to change.

I agree on the hoteling concept, but I’m not sure on open spaces.

What you describe has been the trend for the last 10 years. My office has low partitions (intended to foster collaboration), small footprint cubicles (at least for a construction company where we traditionally had large work surfaces for drawings).

We’re scrambling to find dividers the segregate the cubicles and evidently, we’re not the only ones because the cost of plexiglass has taken off.

Very interesting thread, the subject of which I have been thinking quite a bit about.

My daughter is 26 and has been working from our home for nearly three months. She works for a firm in NYC and lived in Brooklyn.

"Lived" as in not any more.

She moved out a month ago and will be setting up shop in Charleston, SC the first of July. Really neat place downtown.

She is 26 and is really good at what she does - and she can do it from anywhere (with an airport as mentioned). People her age are very comfortable with video teleconferencing, shared files, and the electronic tools to do their jobs remotely.

Her firm is actually encouraging these type of moves and is looking to downsize their brick and mortar footprint. They have run the numbers and have come to many of the same conclusions in the posts above: It is cheaper for them to fly her to NYC twice a month for in-person meeting than to provide office space.

The interesting part will be new hires. Before we let folks work remotely (we are an engineering and design firm so our efforts work easily in the remote format) we do a three month in office program to make sure they get to know leadership, our goals and ethos and we get to size up the new hire.

With the flourishing ABNB market here it is inexpensive to do so.

It will be interesting to track the changes moving forward.

That was about a month ago, personally.

Yep, I work from home for my own business. No deduction at all for the home office.

Wait until they realize any job that can be done remotely can be done from Pakistan.

Here in Oklahoma City there are many new office parks opening up. A cluster of stand alone office spaces that are nice. Mostly rented by medical doctors, dentists, lawyers, CPAs, and such. The demand for work space offices for electricians HIVAC companies will continue.

Overall I am really happy I am not in commercial real estate right now. The oil crash has tons of oil and gas companies shutting down. And so many other workers that always worked in an office are suddenly working from home.

It was nice to have an office and work space to work from in the past when I had a regular job doing what I do now. I just can't see spending the money for one.

There will be hundreds and likely thousands of office locations that will close from this experience. Companies will realize they don't have to invest in locations when employees are more than able and many very willing to work from home.

or even better - CHINA! :D

I have a hard time thinking people will be as productive at home as in the office.
Maybe I'm a pessimist.
Squirrel...!

Been working from home for years. It's pretty sweet.


My biggest issue with distraction was when summertime hit and the kids were home. Outside of that it wasn't bad. Phone calls can be a bit difficult when the wife and three kids are yapping so I generally walk out to my shop when I get a business call.

On the occasions that I have an important business call I close the door to my office. That eliminates most of the background noise of the dogs barking or my wife's watching TV.

One of my friends that works from home as a financial advisor has an office in a back bedroom. He has a hall light with a red light that he turns on for when he is "at work" and don't bother me mode. His kids know it better be really important to interrupt when the light is on. If he is not talking to a client or involved with an important task, he turns the light off.

Worked with a Radiologist who worked 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. He commuted every 2 weeks from Pakistan...not even kidding. He claimed the cost of living was so low that it made sense.

Lots of night service, non-interventional radiologists work from home already. More than one lives in Hawaii where it allows them to work daytime hours when it's night on the mainland.

Lots of my old buds have been WFH for decades (Megabank IT). One had to start his day at 4am though....training his replacements in India.

That’s how I feel. I can work from home effectively and have that option, but am going into the office by choice. Some things are just more effective in person, even though much of my team is working from home.

I've been working from home for over 10 years and enjoy it. More productive than being in an office. I took a deduction for home office on my taxes, so it can still be done. I use to fly out or Burbank a couple of times a week, and do miss being on the road....and I'm not accruing miles and points :--) I have numerous webex meetings per day, and on the phone a lot. I do miss the after work beers with colleagues, but all in all it's a good thing.

Feels like many businesses can ditch the permanent office/cubicle for everyone thing, and replace with meeting/collaboration space + "hoteled" office/cube space. Move applications and files to private cloud. People WFH most days, maybe project teams meet in office weekly, maybe less often. Brutal for commercial RE, great for cloud, security, remote access, etc vendors.

Seems this could drive a move away from high density/small footprint housing in expensive cities? A young two couple with kids is going to want/need at least one spare bedroom>office, if not two. Very few 3 and 4 bedroom apartments out there. If you don't have to commute into the office every day and need more space, why not live in Santa Rosa instead of San Francisco, Ojai instead of Los Angeles, Port Townsend instead of Seattle - heck why not Boise instead of Atlanta.

Tell us more?