A lot of times, when people discuss the phenomenon of employers ending work-from-home and try to make their employees come back to the office, people say that the motivation is to raise real estate prices.
I don’t follow the logic at all. How would doing this benefit an employer in any way?
Yes if we’re verrry clever we can think of some plausible link but even then it’s very loosely goosey and purely theoretical. Just because we can draw a dotted line, however thin, doesn’t mean it’s actually real. Jar Jar Binks is a Sith Lord, etc.
As you say, this is something less than a tertiary factor, perhaps a thought that has crossed a few peoples’ minds. But if it’s even given any weight at all, it is outweighed by other considerations, vastly so, every time.
I agree with you for the most part, but the link isn’t that theoretical. Banks are pushing return to work harder than anyone.
That doesn’t mean they are all purely or even primarily motivated by commercial real estate values, but it’s also naive to think it’s a coincidence.
That article doesn’t say anything relevant here, though. So banks are stodgy institutions and they don’t like work from home. Unsurprising. The article says nothing about real estate valuations being influenced by RTO, and nothing about banks and their real estate investments influencing any other companies. 🤷♂️