Why do people say that "return to office" is about raising commercial real estate prices?
A lot of times, when people discuss the phenomenon of employers ending work-from-home and try to make their employees come back to the office, people say that the motivation is to raise real estate prices.
I don't follow the logic at all. How would doing this benefit an employer in any way?
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That's not really a fantasy at all. It works exactly the same way as the US health insurance practices.
Picture this. You break your leg, go to a hospital, but thankfully you have insurance. So they fix you up, then give you a paper with a number that says 140k$ (I wish I were kidding, this is real) on it. You sit there, completely fucking flabbergasted, but then it all makes sense. This number doesn't even have to be what your leg operation is worth. This 140k$ is what they pulled out of their ass on that specific day, and then negotiated to get that money from your insurance company. The day goes by, you feel like garbage, the hospital has made a ton of money, and your insurance isn't even mad, because they make orders of magnitude more, to the point where this is pocket change to them.
This is practically the same. A business would overpay you to sit in the office, your boss pays for the office, and that arbitrary amount of money goes to whoever owns the building. Issue is, they can keep cranking up the prices on non-residential buildings endlessly, because people keep paying them. Especially when it comes to hot locations like NYC, or anything similar, you know that someone's either already paid for that office for 5 years ahead of time, and needs to justify the absurd cost, or the office floor is sitting empty, because the landlord is delusional
This thesis lacks logic. If a company already paid the office, people going into it or not changes absolutely nothing. And if the rent is going to end, you can save buttloads of money by forcing everyone at home.
There are taxes, utilities which have to be paid just because one owns the property. Commercial taxes are many times 2-10 times more than residential.
Those who have bought it would rather use it bcoz no one is buying it.
Rental agreements are usually multi-year contracts with increasing rent. Breaking contracts are costlier than calling people back to the office.
Edit: for those saying that rental agreements have already been paid, rental agreements don't have an occupancy clause.
Logic behind rental offices needing occupancy is that usually the agreements are for big spaces for 10-15 years. If you have 3000+ sqft office space kept closed gives a negative perception of the company going in loss or the office being closed.
Public understood closed offices during the pandemic, but post that it harms the business. For a publicly traded company perception is everything.
One can pay utilities for keeping the lights up without making people come to the office. However people coming in and out also gives an impression of work happening and normalisation of the companies.
I run a small company with a 3000 sqft office space bought and paid for. For 6 months after the pandemic I did give an option for wfh. The word however spread that the office and the company has closed.
In business perception is everything.
Or you can just not use the office. It is very rare that rental agreements require full occupancy.
Again, when you have a rental agreement, the money is payed already, whether you are in it or not. No need to négociateur anything. People working in the building will actually cost even more because you have the electricity and cleaning and etc.
The building is money already lost for the company. There is no justifying anything. The decision was taken years ago. If the decision was to be taken now, now then you need to justify why you would loan a building when you can simply send people to work for home.
And finally, yes, those who owns will be angry. But who cares? A company usually doesn't own its building and thus doesn't care about their prices.
Why didn't you just put on a sign on the front saying "we're still open, here's our contact info"?
Seems like a really easy problem to fix.
Didn't help even when I had the front office open and populated with a receptionist. The overall look of the office without lights gives a rundown look.
If I am wasting money on power and other utilities I might as well use it.
For a sign people have to read it. Public would rather assume than read 3 words.