I'm sure a small percentage of people would do the same!

On the other hand, I think the large majority of people want to go back to the office (once it is safe to do so)

Have surveyed this at my (large) office and it’s about 50/50.

I don’t know what the exact numbers would be aggregated across the entire population, but from comparing surveys across my own office and several other large companies I think there are two large minority positions (want to WFH forever / want back in office) and a third slice of undecideds.

Similar results at my (reasonably large) company:

* 20% want to go back to the office

* 30% want to WFH forever

* 50% want the flexibility to WFH 2-3 days a week

I was firmly in favor of working for the office pre-pandemic because my organization's WFH infrastructure wasn't really there yet despite a pretty liberal policy allowing us to WFH pretty much whenever we wanted to.

Post-pademic, we've figured out and fixed a lot of the tech and culture issues years faster than we would have otherwise and I'm suddenly much more comfortable staying remote indefinitely.

I'd be curious to know if my own change of heart is unique.

Citation needed on the large majority of people wanting to go back to the office?

Anecdotally, a significant number of my colleagues hope to be able to remote forever. Some are looking at finally realizing their dreams of buying a nice home; a third of the price as it'd cost in the city.

Two of my teammates have literally moved out of state. When I do go back to the office it's still going to be a smaller circle.

I really doubt a large majority of people want to work in the office. Most people do not. Nearly all of my friends (computer geeks) enjoy working from home, it's more of the marketing/sales/manager types that want to get back in the office even though if you corner them they will say they really aren't any less productive at home and can still communicate with whomever they want. Maybe they should go back in and leave the rest of us happy at home.

100k in Montana will practically get you a palace on 100 acres lol

Depends where. Used to live in the western part of the state near West Yellowstone (parents still have a place there), and the prices there are kind of surprising. Even ignoring the Yellowstone Club, there are a lot of multi-million dollar homes sitting on relatively small plots of land (relative to other places we lived in the midwest, not relative to SF).

The western part of the state is where most of the picturesque landscape is, and there were a lot of expensive developments in the area and on the Idaho side of the border from us too.

Eastern Montana, for sure ;)

Tangentially speaking, what does say about Bay Area housing? Anecdotally, I used to look at Google's performance as an indicator on South Bay housing prices.

Housing prices are in a bubble for sure! They are artificially being kept steady.

Rents are still the same but with 1-2 months free deal (which translates to around a few hundred dollars per month down from pre-covid).

Rents are down 10-30% in SF. I received a 10% discount on my lease renewal along with 8 weeks free.

>Housing prices are in a bubble for sure! They are artificially being kept steady.

Artificially only in the sense that most people who would have been selling their house right now are cancelling their plans due to the pandemic, not some sort of organized conspiracy.

I think its not realistic to expect employers to know this right now.

Do it if that's what you want!