The corporate office space as I have pointed out numerous times is an outdated concept that really should have been phased out in the 2000s and definitely the 2010s. Once broadband Internet became a thing, there wasn’t really any need for people to travel into cities just to sit at a computer. Most office work can be performed anywhere. Boomer-aged bosses made every excuse in the book to not make this change by talking about “corporate culture” and other nonsense.
The only good thing that came out of the virus hoax, the lockdowns etc.. is that it forced companies to have a larger percentage of their employees work remotely. They quickly realized that they could operate their organization without all this expensive and unnecessary office space. The toothpaste was let out of the tube and there was no putting it back into the tube.
As a result of this and other factors, like the increasingly unsafe conditions in American cities, office vacancies are at new multi-decade highs.
Office vacancies rise to multi-decade highs.
A confluence of factors: the tyrannical lockdowns, unsafe and poorly-run city centers, and technology — creating a looming crisis… pic.twitter.com/us2YBkQScL
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) January 8, 2024
Bay Area office vacancies balloon to all-time highs as tech wobbles https://t.co/H8tn8VZGnK
— Oakland Tribune (@OakTribNews) January 3, 2024
The corporate real estate market is a big mess as a result of this. The demand for office space is not coming back. The boomer demographic who clung onto the concept of these large and unnecessary office spaces are retiring and/or dying in increasing numbers. Younger managers are not nearly as married to this concept and have already seen how you don’t need to have it in order for an organization to operate.
The corporate real estate market is going to be a mess for a very long time. The whole sector needs to be reset.
