Remote Work WSJ Article

I know companies that are excellent at being fully remote and others that are really struggling -- same industry, different culture, different leadership. The undeniable fact is that the trend towards being more remote more often is here to stay, even if that doesn't mean 100% remote 100% of the time. The technology improvements are that the point that even a bumbling 70-year-old can do it, which only happened within the last year. Even 2 years ago we were fumbling with UberConference, WebEx, and a variety of very difficult collaboration tools.

This all does not mean offices are going away permanently, but it is easier to stomach a 2 hour commute from some corner of Connecticut if you do it only once or twice a week.

It isn't a zero-sum game; if enough of it happens that companies who occupy prime office space reduce their footprint by 25% how will that affect the market? And my guess is that higher you go in $/SF paid in rent the more likely the company is going to invest in whatever tech and training is necessary for remote working. And not just because there is the financial incentive to reduce their footprint and save on rent, but I think those are the types of companies who have people working for them who will want to do it.

Here is an example:
When I worked at Arthur Andersen if you weren't at a client site you were expected to come into the office and take a random unoccupied desk in a large "bullpen" and either do training or pick up some slack for a manager or partner. I can't believe that a lot of companies aren't go to divest themselves of those kinds of situations and the Real Estate needed to support them. Even at "manager" level and you were given your own (usually fairly shitty) office you were rarely in it because you were supposed to be out at clients "managing."

My whole team works from home, on a personal level it is definitely not for everyone. I'm also a bit of a 'digital nomad', over the last 12 years I've worked from Paris, Costa Rica, northern and southern California and Florida. I have other friends that have tried it, most couldn't handle it after a few months! Especially when the kids are home. I enjoy working from home and always have, but I definitely find many like the separation between work and home. It can be very difficult to find that separation when your office is next to the kitchen.

Current buyers we're working with definitely plan to be more work from home, however they want a short commute into the office when necessary.

Our most active buyers are those looking at townhomes and large homes with outdoor space.

Wish I had a crystal ball, it will be interesting to see what New York is like a year or two from now. For me choosing a place to live is more about a preferred lifestyle, where are you going to be happiest? That could be the suburbs, City, country or a van. There is no best place to live, it's completely subjective.

However it's interesting to see as New York City real estate continues to go on sale, some are flocking to markets with homes that are seeing bidding wars after being on the market for a year plus. If I personally were making such a big life change, I'd find a property to rent for a year before committing to a purchase. But, that's just me.

Keith
TBG

What people do not realize is that most jobs which were easy to do remotely were Off-shored and in-shored. The productivity rate of offshore employee on an average is much lower than on-site employees but it is more than offset via lower wages. UBS tried their Stamford stuff but realized that human interaction with others outside the firm is very important to exchange ideas and develop relationships. While I think many companies will allow 2-3 days a week remote work as their current space can’t accommodate everyone with social distancing, it may be short lived once vaccine and/or improved treatments for Corona are discovered.

So far there have never been effective vaccines developed for any family of coronaviruses.

^^^
SARS actually did "disappear," so there was no financial incentive to continue to develop vaccines, and there has never been a need to produce a vaccine against coronaviridae that result in the common cold. That does not, however, mean it is not technically feasible to develop effective vaccines. On the contrary, the phase I research on current vaccine candidates is uniformly encouraging from a scientific standpoint.

But despite the encouragement, the vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 are likely to act more like a flu vaccine -- it preps the body to deal with a likely strain and thus lowers the harm. A vaccine is likely to be less like a smallpox innoculation that provides lifetime protection.

Alex, Good to have medical experts on this board. Thank you.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/google-to-keep-employees-home-until-summer-2021-amid-coronavirus-pandemic-11595854201