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While I'd love to see more work-from-home options, I wonder how it's going to work after a few years' normal turnover. At some point, half the people you'll be working with will be total strangers you've never met and never talk to. That might be fine for some positions and certain offices; probably not acceptable for others.
I have some experience with this. I have worked with several people in Europe I've never met and never will. If they are competent there is no issue, other than the fact we are only "online" at the same time for 4 hours.
I am personally WFH for the rest of my life. If my company tries to force me back I'm quitting. I have 10 hours a week back with a lack of commute, saved an INCREDIBLE amount of money eating 100% meals at home and probably 25% more productive without some co-worker hanging over my cube wall showing me pictures of their kid, or hearing someone go on about their latest remodeling project for an hour.
The long term effects will totally depend on where you're talking about. It's different for every metro. Every state hasn't responded the same. There's more going on than just COVID. There's the protests/riots and governors banning everything in their sights in some states. Many of those states were already seeing people flee and now they're fleeing at a record pace in record numbers. I don't expect most of them will ever come back for a variety of reasons.
One of my siblings works for a small self-storage company with locations in multiple states. They've been crazy busy during the pandemic and have few spaces available. I'm not sure why the pandemic is impacting the need for storage, but they're so busy they are building more spaces.
Commercial real estate is going to tank. Companies (mine included, and it's a HUGE company) have discovered that most people really can work remotely. Makes for happier employees, and reduces the need for huge, expensive office spaces and saves companies a ton of money. So I think A LOT of jobs will remain remote forever. So, there's going to be a lot of empty office space.
Working remotely also means that people can live where ever they want. So, their job may be in New York, but they could live in Oklahoma if they want, since they don't need to go into an office. So, I think a lot of people may migrate to areas with lower costs of living. So demand in high COL areas may decrease, which means prices will follow suit.
I telecommuted for a decade. You still need the face time. You could realistically live 3 or 4 hours away from Manhattan and drive in for meetings and those essential informal interactions with coworkers. Oklahoma? Nope. That’s not viable for most jobs. You have to be close enough to get there the next day on short notice without the $1,000 airplane ticket. You could do Manhattan from your Newport RI summer place or your southern Vermont vacation home. The Catskills around Hunter Mountain or Watch Hill RI where you have a train option and it’s more like 2 1/2 hours is more realistic.
If that’s the trend, there will be far less demand for urban office space and more demand for transient conference rooms where employees meet periodically. As is already happening, vacation home areas will be in really high demand.
FWIW how much do y'all suppose the market for " small individual person working alone " type office space is going to tank as opposed to the market for " big company cubicle section " type office space ?
Also how probable is it that the market for self storage will tank as well ?
I'm asking because while I'm mainly interested in purchasing rural undeveloped land than I can put a mobile home/build a house on , I'm also considering the possibility of perhaps putting some of my insurance settlement money into purchasing a bit of office/storage space for the purpose of renting it out .
I would not invest in office space. There is going to be a lot of empty space available meaning high supply, low demand and therefore, low prices.
I don't know enough about the storage market, but I don't see how that would be affected much by all of this. I do think that residential real estate, in general, is always a pretty safe investment, depending on where you are. For example, I think large cities will take a hit. With more people working remotely, there's not a need to be close to the office. So people are free to move to lower cost areas with better schools, etc. since commute isn't really an issue. Have you considered investing in a rental property?
I telecommuted for a decade. You still need the face time. You could realistically live 3 or 4 hours away from Manhattan and drive in for meetings and those essential informal interactions with coworkers. Oklahoma? Nope. That’s not viable for most jobs. You have to be close enough to get there the next day on short notice without the $1,000 airplane ticket. You could do Manhattan from your Newport RI summer place or your southern Vermont vacation home. The Catskills around Hunter Mountain or Watch Hill RI where you have a train option and it’s more like 2 1/2 hours is more realistic.
If that’s the trend, there will be far less demand for urban office space and more demand for transient conference rooms where employees meet periodically. As is already happening, vacation home areas will be in really high demand.
A lot depends on the job. In my last job, we had several team members in Europe and Brazil. There were a few that we flew in maybe twice a year, but even that was probably unnecessary. And it was still cheaper than housing employees in an office here. We also had employees who we never saw except for on a screen. I still keep in touch with my old boss there, and he said they're not renewing the lease on their office space, so they will all be remote 100% of the time going forward. If teams need to get together, which will be rare, they can just meet up at a restaurant or something. That saves them $30K a month in rent/electricity/internet plus about $1000 a month in coffee, cleaning, groceries, etc.(they kept a stocked kitchen).
I now work for to government. About half of our large team works remotely 100% of the time. They are spread out around the country. They have never seen the inside of one of our offices and it works out just fine. Everybody else has been 100% remote since March. And it's also working out just fine. No official word has come yet, but it looks as though they will give everyone the option to stay remote forever if they want.
I think a lot of companies who never though they could have a remote workforce or never thought certain positions could be remote realized that they actually could work remotely and are seeing the benefit. Turns out that old joke about meetings that could have been an email is actually true.
They'll have a vaccine soon, life will return to normal. Commercial land hogs will take a beating as more people and companies are finding ways to work from home. Small niches of people will not return to their way of life in the city and move to a more rural area.
^^^^^ I think people will dump big city real estate (NYC/Boston type markets) and commercial buildings are in for a long recession as businesses close/others don't need the floor space.
I am retiring next month. The wife and I were set to move to another state and buy a house. We have about 75% of our household goods packed and a truck reserved. The area where we are to move just went to red on COVID. We are now seriously thinking of waiting till Spring, when everyone is back outside, to make the move.
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