How has covid-19 impacted CRE mostly Office buildings space?

[Vijay Kurhade]

Since mid March 2020 many Companies in service sectors from IT Finance Insurance to others have over 70% of their workforce Working From Home; seems like it will continue till end of 2021.

All depending on vaccinations and sars-2 virus mutations; 2022 might be same or beginning of things starting to come to pre covid-19 era normalcy but even then much of early 2022 may be same case WFH for many.

Here in India at least; most Office building tenants belong to one of 3 categories;

1] Long term committed lease with significant security deposits. So they are stuck in paying rents helplessly 

2] Long term lease but flexibility of negotiations, have re-negotiated their lease and cut back significantly on rents

3] Short term flexible lease; many have closed or terminated their lease.

If you visit large Office Parks; situation is similar, great many of them have 10-20% workforce on premises than what was the case till Feb 2020.

With all this and Automation gaining momentum with 2.0 version in early stage; How do you see CRE mainly Office building space in terms of occupancy/rents/investments as well Design change to accommodate Future which seems very different from what we are used to?

Also, which areas of Real Estate, Automation will help make everyday life more easy and beneficial going forward?

Thanking in Advance