Opinion: Remote Jobs and Impact on Real Estate Market?

[Danny Mak]

As a remote (work from home) employee like myself, my friends and I had a debate about the impact of remote jobs on different markets for real estate.

The trend of remote work is growing quickly and I have heard many of my co-workers moving back to where they grew up versus Boston because of the cost of living.

One big reason for people living in big cities besides the experience factor, is employment. The result of remote jobs increasing, in my opinion, will be a gradual decrease in pricing of properties in big cities.

This is just surface level, but please share your in-depth opinions and thoughts!

[Colleen F.]

Having worked from home for a long time I know the climate has changed and working from home is more common/acceptable. However, many jobs are still location based even if they allow some work from home.  Many work from home employees need to be within about an hour of a major airport due to the travel commitments of the job. People have spouses who can't work from home.  Consequently I think the impact will be small. Of course, you will see people look to live further from cities if they only commute a couple of days a week. You will see some telecommuters move to less populated areas but overall it will take a long time to have a major impact.   You may see more jobs where work from home is a standard. 

However you have to keep in mind when unemployment is higher employers can and likely will become more demanding and require more face time. I have seen the difference when company layoffs were on the horizon in how people behave.  Their  3 day telecommute became 1 day.  I lived through a remote position where they said we want you here once a month then we don't want you to travel at all and then who are you and these other people in our headcount in  xyz location.