It’s simple supply and demand. If lots of white collar workers are WFH, then hiring new people doesn’t require more office space. If you can grow your company without leasing office space, or by leasing a smaller office, demand for office space goes down.
Office space owners who use that for income suddenly don’t have (as much) income. So maybe they lower lease rates to attract new tenants. Well, now tenants stuck in higher rate leases start doing the math on penalties for breaking their existing lease vs the new prices.
If remote work stays popular or grows (hint: it’s growing), this CAN result in a race to the bottom on commercial real estate leases, which makes them less valuable investments, which could lead to a massive sell off.
All of this makes CEOs itchy. So they try to justify return to office policies. This just chases their best people into the arms of competitors who will support WFH (and naive pay more without high office space leases to pay).
I think the era of regular office work for white collar workers is over. Maybe a couple days a week for client meetings. But why not just go to the client site?
Office work was killed by COVID. Good riddance.
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
The golden rule of commercial leasing is that you never, ever, reduce the lease cost because the value of the property is calculated directly from lease value. Reduced lease cost is reduced property value. In valuing a commercial property the lack of a tenant is not important.
Generally with a commercial lease your only real options to exit are to find someone to take on your lease. If lease prices have dropped then no one will want to take on your dud lease.