Working remote was still a niche idea at the beginning of 2020, now it's ubiquitous. That has never happened before.
To compensate for lack of socialization in the office, I notice that companies like Gitlab organise corporate gatherings were all employees can meet in person. Open Source projects teams meet at (the fringe of) Fosdem and probably at their yearly conference a second time.
1) size Non-linear diseconomies of scale mean that all other things held equal smaller companies are more likely to be able to pull it off than larger companies
2) first mover / selection I’d guess that there’s a relatively small fraction of employees that can be competitively productive in an indefinite WFH scenario. Companies that were always remote first and got there before everyone else were able to pick off these outliers. Companies trying to convert to it have the luck of the draw and further as the market saturates everyone will have a harder time chasing after these few.
Doesn’t this require the pandemic to be gone? I hope it is, but that’s one hell of a condition.
Have some markets seen ~15% vacancies before? Yes, corporate real estate is very cyclical, no-one builds for years, and then the market adds 40-50% in a few years. But when it gets to 30-40% then you are probably looking for examples outside the US...and SF will be the worst-hit market, others should be less.
But...the world will move on, write down the value of property, assign losses, pay off remaining creditors, the world moves on...I don't think anyone could say a fault of the last ten years has been that shareholders/creditors were forced to swallow too many losses. The strength of a capitalist economy is that losses can be assigned quickly, and everyone moves on...in theory.
My concern is more about the ripple effects. Many low-skilled workers rely on service work, and servicing corporate real estate is a real industry (janitorial services, managerial duties, parking lot attendants, plumbers, even construction). They are already having a pretty hard time of it, and if this industry vanishes, "moving on" may mean going out on the streets. San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and San Diego have enough homeless already.
And, if it doesn't, in the absence of work they always have the option of moving somewhere with a more attractive income to cost of living ratio.
Much harder for a company to up and move than an individual or a family.
I wouldn't be surprised to see established companies expand on cheap real estate and start offering closed offices to employees.
As much as I like closed offices, I think that companies that want to save money still won't offer them. The cost of closed offices isn't just more square footage; they also incur construction costs that open office space don't: walls, doors, their own heating/cooling/ventilation ducts, their own lighting and electrical wiring, etc. And an office layout with closed offices is more expensive to modify.
Every. Single. Time. Valuations too high. Debt too high. Equity too low.
I am pretty cynical because I have read a bit too much history and seen this so many times working in investment management but...so what? Some rich people lose a ton of money...okay? Capitalism has losers. You lose.
Also, in the last crisis, a ton of people (particularly Blackstone) made a ton of money buying huge deals at the very top of the market. None of this excess came out of the market. Lots of people who borrowed tons of money were just able to take their paper to the Fed, and keep playing.