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I keep hearing this explanation (executives want to keep commercial real estate values up) but it has yet to make sense to me. Can someone lay out an example sc

• ejb999 3y ago
  never bought that line either, though its often repeated as gospel. Sure, some big employers own the buildings and care about the value, but many are just leasing their space - and a typical profit-driven corporation, if they could just dump their leases when its over, and felt they could save a ton of money by letting all their employees work from home, would all be doing it. I suspect this 'having big investments in CRE is the reason' is just blowing smoke.
  • aworks 3y ago
    For 11 years, I worked for a successful Silicon Valley company that had a philosophy of renting rather than buying. Their rationale was to focus on their business rather than in something outside their core expertise, commercial real estate. As a side benefit, twice in that time, we moved to newly constructed campuses, which was nice.
• matwood 3y ago
  I also don't buy that reasoning. For me, the more obvious reason is control. WFH gives workers more mobility. Everyone says it lets the company hire from anywhere, but it also lets the worker apply anywhere. A companies best people can now more easily go work for the cool new startup on either coast without disrupting their family.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• malermeister 3y ago
  They themselves can't save their real estate portfolio. CEOs as a collective can. A marxist would call this acting in their class interest.
• Solvency 3y ago
  It's not about their company and the building they reside in. Wealthy people operate as a hive mind. A network. A dive in commercial real estate is a hive problem. They're all panicking for each other because they affect each other.
  • Fluorescence 3y ago
    I like this line of reasoning. It's crazy that so many still try to explain human behaviour as if it's rigidly rational. Have we learned nothing? There are an awful lot of social and political factors at play especially when it's about power and group identification. Something I note from interviews from RTO advocates is that the managerial class has an emotional reaction to WFH. I believe it wounds their sense of status and hierarchy - they resent the "unearned" freedom and comfort of people they have power over. They are not acting for business advantage but from a compulsion for their inferiors to know their place. It's very human sadly.
    • munksbeer 3y ago
      > Something I note from interviews from RTO advocates is that the managerial class has an emotional reaction to WFH. I believe it wounds their sense of status and hierarchy - they resent the "unearned" freedom and comfort of people they have power over. They are not acting for business advantage but from a compulsion for their inferiors to know their place. It's very human sadly. I don't know if this is actually true or not, but it is exactly how I feel (about the mangerial class).
  • bravetraveler 3y ago
    Carlin explained this eons ago. They don't have secret meetings where they try to find the next way to screw us They have the same interests, hang out at the same places, etc. They need not conspire, it's automatic
• citrin_ru 3y ago
  One don’t have to be invested in the exact building office workers pushed to. Just in the same city - lower vacancy rate (across the city) keeps office buildings valuation afloat.
  • rtpg 3y ago
    but that's a bit of a stretch isn't it? Like why go through all of these hoops instead of changing up your portfolio. It's not like the CEO of UberForDogs doesn't have other things to do than plot this out. Every executive I've seen pushing for RTO, it seems prima facie explainable by "executive is lonely and wants to see people". Legit, and I get it! And all the other WFH debates are there, but especially if you've been an exec for a long time and really don't do anything apart from talk to people all day.... RTO sounds nice compared to the alternative
    • disgruntledphd2 3y ago
      It's a conspiracy theory, to be brutally frank. Like, what seems much more likely is a combination of a bunch of things. 1. Lots of people don't work effectively remotely 2. Lots of companies aren't set up to work remotely (which is a big deal) 3. Lots of management are socialised to prefer working in offices 4. RTO is a way to do a soft layoff 5. (way down the list) Some companies have financial arrangements with cities that require them to get people back in the office. Additionally, it's worth noting that this argument is much more prevalent in the Anglosphere (broadly constructed), as I believe that levels of office occupancy are much higher on continental Europe (Western) at least. The worker side is presumably being driven by poorer public transportation and housing policies, which means that workers gain more from WFH.
      • lapcat 3y ago
        > 3. Lots of management are socialised to prefer working in offices I would rank this as 1 on the list.
        • disgruntledphd2 3y ago