What's with increasing "back to the office" arguments? Real Estate and Finance interests

A pretty uninspired blog post and HN discussion ask, and all but completely miss the point of "Why do so many people want us back in the office?".

Commercial real estate interests -- landlords, building management and services companies, but most especially banks and finance companies with a toe in the $2.5 trillion office market, a sizeable fraction of the total $14--17 trillion+ commercial property market (https://www.reit.com/data-research/research/nareit-research/estimating-size-commercial-real-estate-market-us), and all the interrelated securities backed by or tied to it --- have a profound interest here. Leasing volume fell by over 50% per some reports, which is of course huge.

You'll find articles addressing this, largely in the business and financial press, e.g.,

"Coronavirus set to usher in big changes at U.S. offices"
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-officespace/coronavirus-set-to-usher-in-big-changes-at-u-s-offices-idUSKBN21Y334

"Pandemic exposes ‘severe stress’ in commercial property financing"
https://www.ft.com/content/e4b2302b-76c5-494a-8560-e6d24de9358f

"Suburban Philly offices feel the brunt of COVID-19’s economic toll"
https://www.inquirer.com/business/suburban-office-distressed-debt-defaults-covid-coronavirus-cmbs-center-city-20200823.html

"COVID-19 and real estate: How the coronavirus is impacting the AEC industry"
https://www.bdcnetwork.com/covid-19-and-real-estate-how-coronavirus-impacting-aec-industry

"United StatesOffice Outlook – Q2 2020" https://www.us.jll.com/en/trends-and-insights/research/office-market-statistics-trends

Contrast the outlook as of October 2019: "base fundamentals indicate that the US CRE market remains on a strong footing,' from Deloitte: "2020 commercial real estate outlook"
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/financial-services/commercial-real-estate-outlook.html

That's not to say that sandwich shops and individual workers and managers don't have concerrns, but their voices are far more relatable and telegenic than faceless megabanks. Even genuine and spontaneous statements can be repeated and amplified by other interests.

#covid19 #PostCovid #OfficeSpace #RealEstate