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US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

theguardian.com

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Re: US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

#31

Post by profile53 »

latchkey wrote: post #22
lotsofpulp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower the rent.

Easier said than done. Limited space == Higher rent. People are downvoting me, but not really understanding what I'm saying. Even if there is more empty space, what is happening is that landlords are leaving them empty, which keeps the rents higher because there is still limited effective availability. They aren't going to rent to a small business because they don't want to get locked into a 5-10 year lease on a smal…

Isn’t the problem that there is more empty space than needed now so the rents *should* fall?

Re: US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

#32

Post by Animats »

Business owners are adapting just fine. Commercial real estate owners are in big trouble.[1] That article says that most office real estate is leased for five years with an option to renew. Many of those renewals are not happening.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimscheinberg/2023/07/26/dont-l...

Re: US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

#33

Post by tetha »

TeffenEllis wrote: post #5

I’ve been a remote engineer for over a decade, but only recently switched to a hybrid schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. IMO, these two days are effectively useless for any kind of productive technical work. There are simply too many visual distractions, interruptions, and a complete lack of comfort in an office. …But I do enjoy these in-office days for what they make up for in remote work: Face to face chats; Real…

> I’ve been a remote engineer for over a decade, but only recently switched to a hybrid schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. IMO, these two days are effectively useless for any kind of productive technical work. There are simply too many visual distractions, interruptions, and a complete lack of comfort in an office. > > …But I do enjoy these in-office days for what they make up for in remote work: Face to face chats; Real time human bonding; A sense of place. The office is just a socially accepted excuse to get everyone out of their homes and together for a few hours.

This is why we've switched to a full week every month, which amounts to 1 - 1.2 days per week of presence. This week is used for planning, discussions, more complex knowledge sharing. We've just found it more effective to plan some things with post-its and a whiteboard. Sure, things like Miro exist, but if you combine the friction from the wonderful video call solution teams, miro, microphones, internet uplinks and such, it becomes a real distraction.

But yeah, during these weeks, we don't do much technical work beyond keeping the lights on and pushing the simple service requests through the queue.

Re: US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

#34

Post by CharlieDigital »

TeffenEllis wrote: post #5

I’ve been a remote engineer for over a decade, but only recently switched to a hybrid schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. IMO, these two days are effectively useless for any kind of productive technical work. There are simply too many visual distractions, interruptions, and a complete lack of comfort in an office. …But I do enjoy these in-office days for what they make up for in remote work: Face to face chats; Real…

When I ran a remote team on the opposite coast, I'd visit once every 3-4 weeks for a week at a time.

While we'd spend time working, we'd also plan things like field trips (hiking, kayaking, museum visits), we'd go out and get lunch and dinner, bring our Switch consoles and have Mario Kart tournaments in the conference room, and other things like celebrating birthdays, births, anniversaries, and so on.

For remote teams, using the together time to focus on productivity and work is a broken model. Glad that your founders get it!

Re: US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

#35

Post by evilduck »

latchkey wrote: post #22
lotsofpulp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower the rent.

Easier said than done. Limited space == Higher rent. People are downvoting me, but not really understanding what I'm saying. Even if there is more empty space, what is happening is that landlords are leaving them empty, which keeps the rents higher because there is still limited effective availability. They aren't going to rent to a small business because they don't want to get locked into a 5-10 year lease on a smal…

Space may be limited but it's not utilized. In my local metro's business district around 60% of storefronts are sitting vacant and yet rent for these spaces is still astronomical. And it's been that way since 2020. The push for a return to the office is a clear cash grab.

Re: US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

#36

Post by gochi »

TeffenEllis wrote: post #5

I’ve been a remote engineer for over a decade, but only recently switched to a hybrid schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. IMO, these two days are effectively useless for any kind of productive technical work. There are simply too many visual distractions, interruptions, and a complete lack of comfort in an office. …But I do enjoy these in-office days for what they make up for in remote work: Face to face chats; Real…

>We need neighborhoods that people want to be in for reasons other than work!

Every other reason eventually boils down to this very point.

Turns out, specialized districts were a massive city planning mistake.

Re: US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

#37

Post by eftychis »

latchkey wrote: post #22
lotsofpulp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower the rent.

Easier said than done. Limited space == Higher rent. People are downvoting me, but not really understanding what I'm saying. Even if there is more empty space, what is happening is that landlords are leaving them empty, which keeps the rents higher because there is still limited effective availability. They aren't going to rent to a small business because they don't want to get locked into a 5-10 year lease on a smal…

Well the space is not limited anymore, as the commenters suggest. The natural progression is for rents to go lower.

The problem is that would mean that the valuation of the real estate would need to change, which would imply debt repayment, and given higher interest rates: default or finance under onerous terms or being cash rich already.

At the end (as the Fed expects): defaults => lower real estate value ^ rents => cheaper food options.

And that is where usually executive is going to come in to save Government Supported Real Estate (GSE), and throw a wrench to Feds approach.

tl;dr: the government supports this situation it will come to make it worse once again /s.

Re: US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

#38

Post by BenFranklin100 »

They neglect one of the biggest ways we can revitalize downtown areas: build lots of new homes on underdeveloped properties. Not only will this drive demand for downtown office space, it will provide foot traffic for small businesses. It also shortens commutes and is good for the environment.

Re: US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

#39

Post by latchkey »

profile53 wrote: post #31
latchkey wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easier said than done. Limited space == Higher rent. People are downvoting me, but not really understanding what I'm saying. Even if there is more empty space, what is happening is that landlords are leaving them empty, which keeps the rents higher because there is still limited effective availability. They aren't going to rent to a small business because they don't want to get locked into a 5-10 year lease on a smal…

Isn’t the problem that there is more empty space than needed now so the rents *should* fall?

Retail != Office

Retail rent will fall because nobody is in the offices. Retail business will close because of less traffic, and thus there will be more space.

But, retail leases are typically 5-10+ years. Why would a landlord lower the rent now to a small business and get stuck in a long lease, when they don't know if the office space will recover and the big businesses will want to come back?

It is a game of chicken.

Re: US offices are sitting empty – business owners will have to adapt

#40

Post by [deleted] »

TeffenEllis wrote: post #5

I’ve been a remote engineer for over a decade, but only recently switched to a hybrid schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. IMO, these two days are effectively useless for any kind of productive technical work. There are simply too many visual distractions, interruptions, and a complete lack of comfort in an office. …But I do enjoy these in-office days for what they make up for in remote work: Face to face chats; Real…

[deleted]
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