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Remote Work to Wipe Out $800 Billion From Office Values, McKinsey Says
(www.bloomberg.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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I think it’s important to note here that it’s not necessarily great for everyone if the companies everybody works for lose a bunch of money. Companies will try as hard as possible not to realize that loss, and after that happens, lots of office buildings aren’t really built in a way where they can be converted to do anything useful, so they’re just gonna sit there. Normal people are probably going to end up paying for this - personnel are some of the easiest things to let go of for a balance sheet.
Here's the sneaky part: A company that isn't utterly brain dead can save money with WFH. My startup doesn't even have an office to go into, we're all WFH. Know what we're not spending money on? A commercial lease. There's opportunity here for companies to go and save a grip of cash by going WFH and either relocating to a smaller campus or dropping it altogether. In this situation, the only party who loses is the asset holder, and I have no problems with that. You win some, you lose some, that's the free market.
that’s the thing - who’s gonna buy a big campus in this market… kinda reminds me of homberguy/aquaman meme
They could just rent it out. Or convert it and sell. But nooo that's too much hassle
to who? this video has a pretty good explanation of why so many buildings can’t be converted or just won’t make sense to convert. https://youtu.be/imyPVFFACTk
That's a very interesting video. But I still have to ask WHY is it ok for an office to lack the lighting and escape routes when the same is not ok for residential areas (which was the main reason given)? It makes no sense to me. Water and sewage poses no problem because large office buildings have to account for mutiple toilets on each floor. Electricity is also a non issue (I'd argue electricity usage would vastly decrease when coverted). That just leaves shared air circulation and conditioning which also shouldn't be an issue since it would just be maintained through the landlord (and could even be cheaper for the individual since they don't have to pay for their own systems but just a flat fee on the rent).
I honestly don’t know, but I probably wouldn’t want to live in an place with no access to the outside at all, not even a window.
With rent prices in this kind of fantasy land in bigger metroploes like San Fran or NYC , I'd doubt you'd find tenants. Maybe in rural laboratories it might be an issue but not the cities. That's just my thoughts. Might be wrong.