Will Metro Vancouver Suburbs Boom as More People Work From Home

At this point, we are now very acute to the "pandemic lifestyle" and what that entails. We've battled through the toilet paper wars as we've all had to start taking our dumps at home and some have come to a lot of realizations about how they work and the space they live in.

This is especially true for office workers as that is the main subset of people who are having to work from home now. In the Lower Mainland, a lot of the class A office space is located in central business hubs in downtown areas such as City Centre in Surrey, Metrotown & Brentwood in Burnaby and Downtown Vancouver. Downtown Vancouver alone has 4 million square feet of new office under construction.

The following paragraph is from Western Investors article "Back to the Office? No Thanks!" and helps to put some data towards my article.

"The latest study from the Angus Reid Institute reveals only 1/3 of Canadians working remotely expect to resume working from the office as consistently as they did pre-pandemic. Among those working from home, (just under one-third of Canada’s adult population) only 36% say they will likely go back to their place of work when COVID-19 restrictions subside. Most who work remotely anticipate splitting time between their workplace and home, while one-in-five say they will remain primarily at home, the national survey showed. In B.C. 19% told the Insight pollsters they would choose to work from home “forever,” with 78% of respondents saying that catching COVID-19 from a co-worker was their biggest concern."

Now that all these people have been working from home I'm seeing three overarching conclusions come about:

1. 1. People enjoy not having to go into the office and instead get work done in the comfort of their own home so they have the flexibility of not being constrained to a 9-5 schedule
2. 2. The space people have at home is nowhere near suffice to maintain this new lifestyle
3. 3. An appreciation for the area we live in and the desire to have more of it when we go back to life as we know it

The idea of going into the office five days a week on the same schedule has been around since 1908 when Jewish workers were given Saturday and Sunday off so they would not have to work on the Sabbath. We have seen more change in the last ten years from almost every perspective then we have seen in the previous hundreds of years, however, one thing that hasn't changed is the work schedule and people are starting to speak out about that. Working from home and not being constrained to a schedule allows you to take care of things in the day that would usually have to wait until the weekend such as going for groceries, working on side projects, going to the gym or having to get something fixed. There has been talk recently about shortening the workweek from 5 to 4 days so people can have a three day weekend. I don't think a long weekend is the answer but instead, more flexibility with work/life balance for people currently expected to be in the office from X time to Y time would show greater results and something that should be talked about more widely.

The central business hubs I mentioned have some of the highest prices per-sqft ($1,100 Downtown Vancouver currently) for housing so you're on average going to be living in a 600 - 900 sqft condo as you want the city lifestyle and god forbid a 30 - 45-minute commute to the office. Now that they're all sitting at home trying to get work done with the family some are starting to rethink the value of what their dollar is buying them and perhaps that could be put to better use elsewhere. That same money could afford someone a 1,500+ sqft townhouse or even a single-family home over 2,000 sqft 30 - 45 minutes away from the office and the change of scenery within 1 hour from Downtown would blow your socks off. Within 1 hour of Downtown Vancouver, you can go from high rises and concrete to more nature then you would know what to do with in Squamish, BC or even Maple Ridge. With all this time off people have been able to explore these areas and are quite liking it.

Whether it's mountain biking, kayaking, ski/snowboarding, hiking or fitness in general, the Lower Mainland offers arguably some of the best terrain & scenery in the world for that. Everyone is different and to each their own but for families who have been living in these central areas so they can be close to the office are missing out on so much more and you could even go as far to say it deprives their kids of ample outdoor activities and sports which we all need a dose of in our lives to keep sane and healthy but more importantly to learn valuable life skills. The simple task of playing sports at a young age, being in a team environment and having coaches is so underrated and can have a profound effect on success in the later years of life. So many people think they know everything but the only way to be truly successful in life is to be coachable and open to learning new things. Being trapped at home is making more people aware of that. There is a big sector of office employees who already have this sentiment and decided from the start they do not want the city lifestyle but that is where the money is for office jobs so they commute 30 min - 1 hour. This class of people would especially benefit from reduced time spent at the office. If you travel to the office you're spending close to 10 hours away from home factoring in the commute. I'd say the majority are probably only at home from 7:30 am - 7:00 pm of which 8 of those hours you're sleeping. That leaves only about 4 1/2 hours you have to enjoy your house. You can see how both those who currently live close to the office and those who commute to the office would benefit from being able to work from home.

The question now is, will we see a boom in the suburbs from all of these office people moving away from the city and my opinion is no. The reality is "you need to be in the room to be in the deal". What this means is the majority of companies & individuals thrive off cooperation amongst one another and that would be gone if they were to work at home. Certain roles within a company can be done independently but the vast majority need to be at the office collaborating with their coworkers. We will no doubt see some individuals at a point in their career where they can relocate and get away from the city but for individuals early in their career, I think nothing is more important than spending as much time at the office, networking and learning from others. Those random conversations you have in the hall can have some of the most profound effects on someone's career.

Covid or not I think we'd be seeing a shift happening in how we use office space. Historically offices have ample individual office spaces and fewer open areas and meeting rooms. Companies such as Spaces and WeWork have been launching shared offices throughout North America as both flexibility with work and collaboration are becoming a bigger piece of the puzzle. This is something the millennial and gen Z demographic especially appreciate and seek out these sorts of opportunities when selecting a new employer as the old office model isn't particularly exciting. Nowadays you see companies such as Convertus having Nerf wars and pizza parties at the office and flexibility with work hours, something you wouldn't typically see in an office environment twenty or even ten years ago. The office is becoming a place people want to be at and I think Covid is only going to make that desire stronger. There have been negative aspects to Covid of course but from my perspective, I see more positives as a result of the shutdown. It has forced companies & startups to speed up growth and innovate faster than expected as they've had to adapt and that includes the functionality of the office space.

What if the functionality of the office space is what changes. Offices no longer being the place you come to hunker down at your desk and work but the place you come to collaborate and learn from others. That is the world we're moving towards and the master-planned communities are an example of that. it's more about building a place of gathering and networking. You cant be successful just working on your own from home. You need to be in the room to be in the deal.