PwC just announced they're allowing all employees to work remotely. As we see more companies look to winding down property leases to increase their bottom line, there's 9.2 million jobs and $1.14 trillion in GDP potentially impacted by this shift (Source: L.A. Times).
So, the big question is what that shift looks like. There's some suggestion of repurposing commercial space as retail and residential but that would take many years of rezoning, permits, retrofits, etc., and so some inefficiencies would arise, and the near term effect would still be a net decline in real estate value.
There will obviously also be some spaces retained for core staff, executive offices, meeting spaces, etc., but as the WeWork fiasco showed, the rank and file seem to be much more amenable to working from home than so-called dedicated coworking spaces. How might this provide relief to related sectors, such as housing shortages with residential population booms? What does it do for income inequality?
I don't have a particular perspective that I'm sharing here, but rather raising the topic for discussion. What are your thoughts on opportunities, risks, etc., that we might be looking at, over the next decade or two, as the remote office wave permanently transforms the way we work.
Submitted October 06, 2021 at 12:32PM by th3cr1t1c https://ift.tt/3lgoDt5
