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Return-to-office policies are driving people to sell their homes - even at a loss
(finance.yahoo.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
303 points (98.1% liked)
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Crash the housing market to save the office building market
The housing market needs to crash. Prices nationwide are insane. Bubble needs to pop
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I'm OK with that, the housing market is in a giant bubble and it needs to crash. I say that as someone who bought a house at the lowest price point right at the start of the pandemic, combined with an incredibly low interest rate. Theoretically my home is worth almost 50% more now, 4 years later.
Thaaaaat's a bubble.
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tbf, this is probably suburban / rural areas to move back into urban areas that are already having crises. Won't fix any of the housing markets in high population centers.
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"My sellers both work at the same company, which told them they have to be in the office three days a week or they'll lose their jobs. They have six months to make the move. They'll probably have to take a $100,000 loss on their home," Pendleton said.
Pretty sure I would rent out the home instead of taking a $100,000 loss? Rent something to live in where you're moving to until it's more favorable to sell.
Six months is plenty of time to find a new job these days.
In a lot of these WFH communities, the rental market softened with the rest of the housing market, so you might not have renters or have to take a hit on the rent. Also, being a landlord more than a commute-able distance away from your property sounds like asking for trouble, unless you hire a property manager, but that's another hit to your income.
Even if the market in some of these more remote areas softened a bit, I think taking a $100,000 hit over one year is crazy, though. Even if you lose $100 or $200 per month renting it out, that's a long ways from $100,000. Meanwhile, you're paying off the mortgage and building equity.
Yeah, that's nuts. Also, as a couple you both probably shouldn't be working for the same company from a risk reduction POV.
Rent to own is also an option.
That assumes you can get a back to ground be you two mortgages though.
This is an excellent opportunity for corporations to buy up homes.
The rich will only get richer until we stand up.
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After seeing the headline, I thought it would be people moving farther away to be outside of the RTO radius. Instead its people moving closer to work because they are cities/states away with WFH.
A lot of companies (Amazon) don't have a radius. It's RTO or nothing.
nothing it is, then
I know lots of companies are handling the wfh and return to office situation poorly. But to provide a counterpoint, at the start of covid, I led all the engineering teams in a large organization with dozens of sites. When we went to wfh we made it clear that we were authorizing remote work with the contingent that the team could be called in as needed, not to move outside of the area, and not to travel more than two hours away when on call (1 week every two months) etc. Sometimes things break bad enough you need the team's to be physically present at a location, or doing major border device work, etc.
Either the organizations didn't message properly, or a lot of people moved despite being told that the wfh wasn't a permanent remote work accommodation. I'm all for remote work and hybrid, etc, but on a personal level buying a house outside your commute range while knowing you might get called in someday and being brown to your job... just poor decision making.
Fwiw, I approved permanent remote with for all my staff who didn't have any physical responsibilities. For those whose jobs involved any physical infrastructure, the best a could do was hybrid with no minimum number of days in office, just come in as required for the work.
Either the organizations didn’t message properly, or a lot of people moved despite being told that the wfh wasn’t a permanent remote work accommodation.
A lot of employers straight up lied. In some situations, management said employees would be permanent WFH but they didn't have that authority. In other situations, employers changed their mind and the employees have no recourse other than trying to call the employers bluff.
Yours is a sane and reasonable approach. Sometimes you need to drive down to the datacenter and push a button, or there's special equipment you need that is cheaper to have in one place. These jobs should be in person when necessary.
Pushing people to commute outside of this framework puts unnecessary strain on transportation networks and useless emissions in the environment.
At my previous role, I ALWAYS wanted to be onsite at the datacenter if I was doing upgrades of critical systems. I'd sit in the lobby where it was quiet instead of on the datacenter floor but there was comfort knowing that if a button needed pushed I didn't have to drive 30 minutes to do it.
They definitely moved with the intent to be fired if called on-site permanently again. There were tons of comments to that degree during that time (and now).
Essentially, there's more than enough demand for tech skills. They can easily find another job that allows WFH.
It's fair. Shitty to honest managers trying to accommodate where plausible, but honestly, tiny violin vibes there.
That wasn't poor decision making. That was knowing their worth. They knew if the company demanded a return to office they could simply continue working remote for a different company, likely with an increase in pay. Only a fool would alter their life plans for some company that might require RTO. Now they're enjoying improved quality of life while living where they prefer.
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I told my boss the other day my upper limit for in office time is one a week. We were 3 days a week before COVID, 0 during COVID, 1 a month after COVID, and just this month they upped it to twice a month.
Hell, if I stopped coming in at all right now there is no way in hell they'd fire me anyway. We have too much stuff to do and not enough time to do it. I know people think that but we've got contractual obligations to fill and new regulations to follow. It'd cost them way more to fire me and miss those deadlines waiting for new hires to get up to speed.
Dude, just don't go. If you're doing your job from home, why are they asking you to burn fuel and your time on earth sitting in fucking traffic???
If more people stood up for themselves, we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.
If only more workers could stand up for themselves in unison. Like some united front. But what could we call it?
It would be a lot easier to sell RTO if rent weren't outrageously high anywhere near a downtown central business district. I prefer office personally and don't mind a 20 minute commute or so but any more than that is a real drag. It's real hard for me to tell someone to fight an hour and a half of rush hour traffic just to get to the office and be harassed for 8-12 hours and then do it all again at night.
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