Work from home and the office real estate apocalypse

> We show that the pandemic has had large effects on both current and expected future cash flows for office buildings.

And this is why loans charge interest, for the "I have no idea what's going to happen but I don't believe you that this enterprise is entirely risk free" sort of reasons. Though I think we've generally managed to decouple the concept of "risk/reward" in loans/investment/etc, in favor of "I'm guaranteed returns, come hell or high water!"

However... on the topic of office space, I can only say, "Well, those chickens sure went home to roost." I can't fault office workers for not wanting to go back to the circle of Hell that a modern "open office" floorplan is. And I don't blame them in the slightest for seeing through the "spraying fountain of crap" that are management's supposed justifications for it. "Serendipitous encounters" happen with offices. But they happen in the places where people go to hang out when they want those encounters, when they want a break from the peace and quiet needed to actually do work. I expect a lot of workers just want to hear management say, once, "You know, it's cheaper to squeeze you in tighter and buy a few more desks than to buy more office space." Though it doesn't explain why the new office space has 500 foot sightlines...

Over the years, I've had almost every office configuration one can have, with the notable exception of a proper cubicle. Frequently, I would have nearly killed someone for a cubicle.

Offices with doors are great, and even if you have to share them with someone, as long as there's good space to work and spread things out, they're wonderful. Door closed, I'm working. Door open, come and chat.

"Team work areas" are fine, if all the people in the room are on the same team. They tend to develop work patterns and cycles, so you know that some hours are light work time with some social interaction, some are heads down hours. Of course, it's amazing just how fast the couches, coffee tables, bookshelves, whiteboards, etc can disappear to cram more people in when the team expands.

And then there's the open office hell that is just horrible for the exact sort of work that tech types are paid good money to be good at - what Cal Newport calls "Deep Work." The sort of stuff where, done right, you can disappear into a problem for 6 hours, and come up with something good. The open office reality is more, "If you can get half an hour of actual concentration, with something loud screaming in your headphones, you're having a good day."

And I've been able to compare the two states, because my current office (full time remote) is the "Solar Shed" - an 8x12 Tuff-Shed that's entirely off grid, and entirely my own workspace. I now can, and do, manage the "My wife has to ping me for dinner because I've lost all track of time with some problem" days. I came to it from open office, and the contrast couldn't be more extreme.

So, yeah. If office spaces were good places to get work done, I expect a lot more people would be interested in going back. But they're not. And even a poor quality WFH space is often better than "always loud, always people talking, can't get an hour of good concentration in" open office hell. A good WFH space? Nobody has offices like that anymore.

That's in the long run though. The "destroyed value" was an evaluation based on future rental income. In a way the valuation puts a price tag on the assumed future return on purchasing the property. Someone else is now not paying that rent, but they didn't get a lump sum transfer of that valuation in cash.

New York’s zoning laws.

Any developer worth their salt can have that corrected. Everyone in NY walks around with someone else's hand in their pockets.

Yes value was destroyed by these deals/builds not properly accounting for risk of a shift to WFH. Basically all the companies involved lit money on fire to the tune of $500b. Other areas benefited but this was pure vaporization of money.