[wayoutthere]

Even after we start to recover; how many companies are going to keep as much floor space as they had before? Remote work is here to stay.

This is going to turn into a global commercial real estate crash in 6 months, no doubt.

[toomuchtodo]

Fantastic. Finally some sanity about disintermediating work from locality.

Sidenote: Carl Icahn is currently shorting commercial RE, so I think you're right.

[wayoutthere]

Paradoxically, I think that the post-crash recovery will be a great opportunity for WeWork (if they survive). My guess is that many companies will outright close most of their branch offices, shifting people / teams that want or need to be in an office to coworking spaces.

This movement will also have reductive effects on carbon emissions, so despite the coming carnage in commercial real estate, it's the right direction. Hopefully a lot of that square footage can be converted to residential, because there is still an affordable housing shortage...

[toomuchtodo]

If you can work from anywhere, that helps alleviate the affordable housing shortage. Move where the housing is cheap. Not everyone is going to get to live in Manhattan or SF proper.

[wayoutthere]

This may be somewhat cynical, but housing policy in the US continues to be one of the main tools in systemic oppression of minorities. There are powerful segments of the population who are fine with the status quo and will not be happy if "they" move in next door. So they will do everything they can to "keep property values high" in suburban neighborhoods -- which has historically been a dog whistle for "keep minorities out" -- and in direct opposition to creating more affordable housing.

[toomuchtodo]

It'll take decades to "fix" housing policy through upzoning and waiting for the existing population of homeowners to shrink (freeing up housing stock). I don't disagree that there are challenges due to the status quo, but remote work is a fix that can be implemented today and can help lift the wages of folks who might not otherwise be able to have those roles.

You're not going to be able to change property rights in the US, so the problem may be unfixable to be frank, and those property rights are what keeps property values high.

[wayoutthere]

I agree remote work is the right way to go, but the affordable housing crisis can't be fixed through any other method than "build more housing". Every other thing that people propose is designed to protect property value by not building more housing. We simply have to make housing less scarce and yes, that will drive down property value. That's kind of the point.