post corona, is remote work going to stick and drive down demand comercial real estate? what sort of RE are you guys buying?
Yeah I think it will. I work for a major company and our CEO has already said we’ll be shifting to a hybrid office/home approach post-covid. Have to think demand for large commercial office space will decline, but I doubt that’s the type of real estate you’re looking to invest in anyhow.
I’m buying personal real estate in the suburbs. Reason being, and depending on where you live, city prices are grossly overvalued and I think people will be more willing to move out if they don’t have to commute to work everyday. I’m also the GP in a real estate LP, we’re actively looking for commercial options. Still ridiculously hard to find a decent cap rate, but if we find one with a strong anchor tenant we’ll jump quickly. Still think there’s room on the downside given the change in sentiment in the short term.
My dream is a condo in Manhattan, hope everyone moves out to the burbs
“What’s more, the coronavirus could lead New Yorkers to reassess the costs and benefits of living in New York City and look for homes in more rural or suburban communities, perhaps in other states. An untold number of New Yorkers have [fled the city for the Hamptons, Hudson Valley and other locales,] and are now adapting to working remotely.”
The shift is real
ohai is gonna clean up
odd. only the poors are affected by this downturn i thought.
based off my rent. i need to buy a place at 260k for a 2/2 condo. cheapest thing i see is in tarzana at 276k. and i dont really want to lvie in the valley. but its nice. got a pool, gated.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/18530-Hatteras-St-UNIT-220-Los-Angeles-CA-91356/19934441_zpid/
honestly. even if it hit 260k i aint buying. too many of their renters are about to default. too many people who own those condos cant afford their hoa pretty soon. teh air bnbers are gong to get toast. i cant wait to pick up the pieces.
Well this is a separate issue really. Plenty of high income earners live in the downtown core who are paying high rent, and those who own are paying a substantial portion of their income to housing (mortgage/property tax). There’s an appeal to moving your family the suburbs, avoiding these costs and perhaps increasing your standard of living if you don’t have to live close to the office. Not saying there will be a seismic transformation, but I would imagine there’s a better chance for price appreciation outside the city than in it.
But you’re right about near term condo prices, especially in larger cities. For all the reasons you mentioned prices are already down significantly and I think the worst is to come. It may not be reflected in listing prices, but if you take a look at recent closed sales I think you’ll find many going well below asking. I wouldn’t be a buyer of a condo right now unless I planned to live in it - which I think is the case for you.
does this hybrid office/home require workers to show up in the office on occasions or is it like software companies with outsourced personal living far away from HQ?
There is some very reasonably priced real estate in Barstow.
Well I work in finance and for us it means working from home unless you have to see a client. In which case there will be office space available. Long-ish term my sense is they plan to reduce our footprint and combine more and more smaller teams into shared locations.
For tech companies I’d guess it will become the norm. I think it was Twitter announced a few days ago that they are allowing some employees to remain WFH post-covid. Square and a few others are following suit. I mean how much real estate is being tied up for office space that really isn’t needed if all the systems are in place to allow work from home.
The trade off is the camaraderie and team building aspect of the office. This can be mitigated with strong management who can adapt to a changing world. Any team that has connected via zoom happy hour drinks over the past few months can attest to this. Moreover we’re all getting used to video conferencing as a way of communicating. It was strange as hell back in March, but now even clients prefer it. “You mean I don’t need to get a shower and drive downtown, park, go up 65 floors and come home?” Just my opinion, we’ll see how it all plays out.
But ud be in butt â– â– â– â– nowhere! I draw the line at the valley.
Plenty of team building events exist outside the office. I’d be willing to travel upwards of an hour one-way to shoot some of my co-workers in the face with a paintball gun.
The term is BFE (BumFuckEgypt). I live there already. It’s not too bad
i heard egypt made some super nice suburbs over there that are underused. but they got balling features.
@Voyager3 I had the same idea as you - in fact I’m actively searching RE 1-1.5 hours outside of proper Boston for that exact reason. I’m looking at properties with solid schools, 0.5 acres, and on a lake. The issue with this logic was brought to my attention when I presented this idea to my wife who shares a similar sentiment as @GorillaNerd where she doesn’t want to leave the city despite both of us WFH for the past 2+ years.
There’s definitely appeal to living in the city and some folks just won’t leave. The property I’m negotiating with now (just came across a few sizeable defects in the inspection report) is an investment property. An hour outside the city with good rental prospects.
For us, ironically my wife would move out of the city in a heartbeat and I’m the one who’s reluctant both for social reasons and I don’t yet have full clarity on my wfh situation going forward. It is a tough decision when you have friends and family living in the city. Also I don’t have kids. If/when we have kids and prices are much cheaper in the burbs, combined with wfh it will be an easier decision.
But for investment I’m not hesitating.
i mean with the wfh. people should just live in the cheaper lcol areas in teh us. particuolarly with favorable tax rates such as florida, texas, or nevada. some interesting bits in terms of collection from various reits and also where ppl are buying sfm vs urban downtowns.
i really hope a lot of retail companies go bankrupt. us has too many malls. what we need is housing!
Florida might be no-go for me, fam. The ground can swallow you up in your sleep
lol there u go. wfh now pays u less.
Just scanned the article, but is he saying that pay will vary depending on what state or city you live in? As in New Yorkers get paid more than…? (I don’t know any cheap states)