With most people that have the privilege of work-from-home are currently working from home, the conventional wisdom that’s been going around is that this drastic change in the way we work going to cause a mini paradigm shift in how companies operate going forward, especially in the tech sector. If this somewhat coerced exercise proves that it’s possible for a company to operate just fine with a remote workforce, then it makes no logical sense to continue to rent real estate simply so that everyone can be in the same room. Especially so in the San Francisco Bay Area, where rent is utterly astronomical.
It’s being theorized the shift to working from home permanently will have further downstream affects, namely workers moving away from ultra expensive city centers and towards other parts of the country where a dollar goes way farther. Much like it doesn’t make sense for companies to keep paying rent, there’s no reason for employees to live in areas where four-figure rents would only net you a single room, if they are able to literally be anywhere in the world with an Internet connection and still work. Smart folk are predicting there will be an exodus of sorts of workers moving to the cheaper parts of the country.
And that is quite okay with me, speaking as a native San Franciscan. The downward pressure on housing demand, should the prediction of masses of people leaving the area comes true, means I’ll finally be able to comfortably afford the rent in the city I grew up in. It would be a lovely thing indeed to finally be able to move out of my parents place and attempt the independent life for the very first time. I did not skip town for university, so I lack the momentary emancipation that most of my peers experienced during our college days. I think the time is right for such a move.
If me and my family are lucky to make it out to the other side of this coronavirus mess healthy and employed, I’ll take a serious look at moving out of the house. The externalities of the virus have perversely created a situation where it actually make sense now. We shall see!
Ancestral hometown eats.