At about 150 sq.ft per employee (https://robinpowered.com/blog/new-office-determine-right-off....) that means 80,000 employees vacated office space.
Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
121–130 of 527 posts
Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
#122[deleted]
Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
The lack of continued large-scale stimulus is tragic. We need a strong stimulus package with direct monetary relief (one $1200 check is not enough), and a program of structured financial relief / rent forgiveness. Unfortunately, I don't see it happening.
Yes, we need at least another 6 trillion. Maybe 20 trillion. Why stop there? We should quadruple the money supply maybe, we need to protect commercial real estate investors, after all. ... and then in 2021 we can all scratch our heads and wonder why income inequality is worse than ever, and despite all this spending, we didn't even make an appreciable dent in the impact of Covid-19 on public health.
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Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
#124I'm excited by the idea of permanent remote work and moving somewhere more affordable. I moved to SF relatively late in my career, and only realized afterwards that I have nowhere near enough savings to own a nice home here. But most of my coworkers seem eager to return to the office. They miss the office environment, the perks and catered meals, and the socialization. And the managers, who subsist on meetings and in…
> And the managers, who subsist on meetings and in-person interaction, seem even more anxious to get everyone back in their desks.
I recently quit my job so I could stop being a manager and return to IC, exactly because of this. In a WFH climate managers have to work twice as hard to stay competitive in the political games.
Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
#125Is this a worldwide trend? Wonder what it means for city tax incomes.
Meanwhile, in Canada… http://trreb.ca/index.php/market-news/market-stats#commercia... If leasing activity and sales volume are good indicators, it’s down. Though prices are up slightly… Also that data is nation-wide, and not specifically for Toronto, which is reasonable to assume would be the hardest hit. (Biggest city, and Ontario has not controlled this as well as British Columbia.)
I think aggregate for the country is almost meaningless, these things are very local.
Toronto residential rentals are dropping but not that quickly. Construction has not slowed and condos are popping up like mushrooms. Prices seem stable for now
There is A LOT of hiring by US companies. Canadian labor is so cheap compared to CA. Every startup past series A seems to be opening a Toronto branch. This is awesome news as it will drive salaries up.
On another positive side we do not have homeless shitting on every corner. Drug addict camps are pretty small and localized and Winter is Coming. Plus courts are actually letting city clear the encampments.
Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
#126I live in a state where we are suddenly inundated with California’s refugees, fleeing the state now that they don’t have to physically live there. Reasonable taxes, a much less stressful work-life balance, bigger homes all make it very appealing to ditch the once0golden state. Our company has decided not to reopen a majority of it’s office space. Ironically, the Bay Area office is remaining open while other offices a…
Which state? I thinking of moving and would like to know good states to move into
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Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
#127We haven't even seen the extent of the depression yet. Combined with congressional inaction on social spending a lot of people are going to be in very deep finanical issues. This is a systemic problem that we needed fixed 3 months ago.
(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24890196.)
Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
#128I'm excited by the idea of permanent remote work and moving somewhere more affordable. I moved to SF relatively late in my career, and only realized afterwards that I have nowhere near enough savings to own a nice home here. But most of my coworkers seem eager to return to the office. They miss the office environment, the perks and catered meals, and the socialization. And the managers, who subsist on meetings and in…
I agree. The people with the power have far more incentive to return to the old model than to try a different one.
Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good idea but sadly impossible for San Francisco because San Francisco cannot even convert places that are zoned for housing into housing.
Won’t. Not Can’t. This problem is entirely of the Bay Area’s own making. They have been pursuing exclusionary housing policies while cranking up taxes and spending for a long long time. Now the revenue base for those taxes are collapsing at the exact time they need the revenue to weather the storm.
SF literally created the first zoning laws in America. Nothing that's happened there in terms of zoning and real estate cost is an accident, it's a natural result of politicians and citizens valuing real estate value above pretty much anything else.
Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Before covid rents in SF were among the highest in the world, which implies very high demand. I’m confident that many people still want to live in SF, e.g. single people like to cluster next to other single people. In other words working in tech is a draw but not the only draw for living in SF or any other urban area.
Money a lot of money,networking opportunities etc was THE draw. There are dozens of cities that have everything else that SF has. If $$ goes away it will crash so hard it will make Detroit look like a model city. My hope that after election hysteria is over and Vaccines get approved we will be back to something resembling normal by next summer. SF has a huge value as a place for tech with all its other faults it woul…
San Francisco was a popular city before the tech boom, and remains popular for much more than just software engineer networking. That doesn't mean losing the tech industry can't cause problems, of course, but saying that software is the only thing special about SF is like saying banking is the only thing special about Manhattan.