The office isn’t dead, but it is also clear that the office won’t come back to levels we saw before. Commercial real estate is very expensive. In many companie

The office isn’t dead, but it is also clear that the office won’t come back to levels we saw before. Commercial real estate is very expensive. In many companies the biggest expense after salaries is the cost of their office space. That cost is going to be challenged very heavily moving forward. Many companies that were against work from home because “it won’t work for our company” have been in near 100% WFM mode for a while now. After some initial stumbles most haven’t imploded and many quite like the new model. I suspect that hybrid will become the new norm and that many fewer people will spend every workday at the office. That in turn drastically reduces the square footage required by many companies. The implications of all this for the commercial real estate market are quite severe. Expect to see developers quickly try to pivot some of their commercial space into residential ASAP before they find themselves sitting on empty floors with plunging value.