When my office door is closed, everyone knows I'm "at work". If you don't have a separate physical space where you only work, I can see how this might be a challenge.
I think it just boils down to different people have different needs and work differently. Remote works well for some, offices work well for some. We will never find something that works 100% for everyone.
Thanks for the anecdote though :)
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/german-labor-minister-calls-for-right-...
I personally value the in-person collaboration at the office, but many days I don't feel like facing the rush hour - usually on the way home which is more crowded.
I'd prefer to routinely WFH in the AM after the kids start school, go into work around 11AM. have meetings and lunch with teammates, leave around 3, and then finish the day working from home. This would let me avoid rush hour while still getting in person interaction with my coworkers.
Also, my house only has 3 bedrooms, and the kids take two of them. My office is in the corner of the living room with no walls. I can't lock anyone out of it.
Your house has to be large enough to support a home office to work from home full time.
Although if I wasn't living in this city I could probably afford a bigger house... we pay a premium to live within 10 minutes of work, so we don't have to face that 'two hour commute' you speak of.
Same person taking care of them when you're at work. Except for 3 hours a day less
Now add a partner who also works from home. Will the extra space (and hardware) needed to comfortably fit all these new home workers be another cost shifted from companies to employees?
If my company wants me to work from home much longer; they need to provide a better desk chair, a new screen, and better keyboard/mouse attachments.
The cost of a bit of equipment is a joke compared to the cost of another bedroom. Adding another room to a house is tens of thousands of dollars. Buying a home with another room is also the same cost or more depending on where you live (bay area - another bedroom can easily be $200k+!). Renting - same problem.
I wouldn't get hung up on equipment costs when the cost of space is far greater. (Even if you replace all furniture every 3 years)
If I go to the office (mainly for socialisation, sometimes for large whiteboarding afternoons), I have a fight to see if I can perch on the end of a desk nowhere near anyone I work with on a tiny laptop, massively unproductive.
My office at home is about 80 square foot, and it has a pull down bed in it too for guests. London office prices puts that at £4,000 per month[0]. Manchester is £2700 a month, Liverpool £1300 a month.
The mortgage on my _entire house_ is 20% of the cost of a desk in London, the cost of my house is about £1 per square foot, and that includes the capital repayment.
I think you misread my comment because this was my exact point. Fundamentally shifting 8-10 hours of our day back to our homes will directly impact how we set up our homes. What might those impacts be? More space is the first one that comes to mind because I feel it everyday with two people working-from-home.
I'm convinced America is just going to continue to sprawl. I don't think there will ever be a case where we'll actually increase the density of cities overall beyond that of typical SFH density. (And thus more cars, less public transit, etc.)
Yes, making a location more desirable by increasing its amenities will raise prices. The way to counter that is to make those sorts of amenities that people desire (cafes, transit, walkability) more broadly available, not to stifle them.
For obscure chairs - you can sometimes get a roaring good deal by just setting up alerts on Craigslist. It's how we got a Hag Capisco for $350 instead of paying nearly $900 - good as new too.
The point is that if more people are going to work from their houses, then houses will need to be bigger in the medium- to long-term.
Life is about choices. I'm enumerating my choices because I want to help others make choices that help them have a higher quality of life when the choice presents itself. Do what is best for you. I apologize if any of my responses come across as anything less than helpful; my intent is to be helpful.
A lot has changed in a matter of 3 months. Decisions are constantly being re-evaluated with new information. I was simply opining on how something like "an increase in working from home" might actually have larger societal impacts.
This article suggests people might move away from expensive places like Silicon Valley. I am suggesting there is another angle, the amount of space people have available at home to actually perform work. It shifts the burden of finding a work station off employers and onto employees. Does a one-time stipend of $1,000 cover that? Probably not for many people.
On the other hand, commuting is usually not cheap--even if it's just a transit pass. Your points about space are reasonable though most people I know with houses seem to be doing OK. (But then we're a large distributed company so many are on video calls from home on a regular basis anyway.)
It's certainly fair though that, if you have a tiny city apartment that's just a place to sleep, that can't be very pleasant right now and you'd probably want to rethink if going into an office becomes no longer a typical daily activity. (Some companies will pay for co-working space so that may be one option.)
Not cheap, but tax advantaged and sometimes even reimbursed. The tax advantages for working-from-home are much harder to unlock, especially in the short-term or if you work from your bedroom.
Anyways, I thought it was an interesting economic thought-exercise to discuss the second-level impacts of a work-from-home society. I've seen a lot of talk on people fleeing cities, but I think there is a lot more nuance to the discussion.
By working at home, I'm saving time and money. I'm happy to take the increased responsibility of creating a workable space. Most people end up doing that anyway and call it a workshop/sewing room/etc.
Bob working from home, costs $salary, say $10k a month
Carl, working from office, costs $salary + office space
Office space costs say $5k a month, so total $15k a month
If all things are equal, who would be employed? Maybe Bob charges $14k a month, still undercutting Carl's $15k/month total.
Also, out of curiosity, how far would you be willing to take this sentiment? I'm originally from Poland - if I could live there and still earn my current US salary, I'd probably be able to buy one apartment every year and still have money left over to live comfortably. So, should you actually compete with others? If so, are you OK with them undercutting you? Would it be good or bad if they did? :)
Don't mix up "working from home" with "remote work", once you leave the city of your office.
I know at least a few people who would love to go live near their "core communities" from their youth, to rent their own little office downtown near the only diner with unlimited coffee, next to the two lawyers & one dentist.
And at least for a couple of them, they'd love to "commute" once a month out of Middletown/Discovery Bay, stay at the same motel 6 in Sunnyvale for a Thursday, Friday & expense it as business travel.
Though, a lot of this isn't about economics, but mostly about personal goals.
You can't imagine the relief from just being able to throw in a load of laundry mid-morning, take the dog for a walk at lunch, and starting a meal immediately after work. Working from home is a major stress reliever for family people. My wife and I are also saving quite a bit from not driving our cars, not going out for coffees or lunches, etc.
When we're not in the middle of a pandemic and kids are at school, camps, etc., working from home is a major boon for family people.
Having a family brings with it some other major concerns. You will want a larger home, a good school district, a safe neighborhood, and a short commute. A childless person who lives in an apartment in the city and doesn't think twice about getting home at 7 is likely to value the time in the office much differently than a parent trying to make brutally expensive house, a miserable commute, and family time work.
As others have touched on, single people might really enjoy the atmosphere of their office space as an escape from small apartments.
Even if they aren't of school age, paying for daycare vs potentially much lower cost of living is an easy trade for a lot of people. That's not even getting into the difference between public school choices or much reduced private school tuition available in the rest of the country.
Opposite for me. I bought a house big enough to have an office without distraction. An environment I can control, unlike the office where distraction is everywhere.