WORKING FROM HOME COULD CRATER THE EXPENSIVE BAY AREA HOUSING MARKET
Don Dunbar Twitter was the first to do it. Square then followed suit. Now Facebook is saying that it is considering it. Companies are today allowing people to work from home, and it seems to be the trendy thing to do. However, that will have a massive impact on the Bay Area housing market as most workers cannot continue to live in a pricey area when they have the liberty to work remotely while paying less. It does not make any sense to continue paying high rents when you can afford a cheaper housing option elsewhere.
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shift in policy could, however, save the region where there would be downward pressure on the rents in this infamously expensive region. And note, it is not only the Bay Area that will be affected, but other places like Los Angeles and New York also fall under the same bracket too. Facebook Inc and Google have announced that the ma jority of their workforce will not be required to come into their offices for the rest of the year. Additionally, Twitter has allowed its workers to work
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Surveys are showing that a growing number of people working in tech companies are now considering working from home as a great option. The current healthcare crisis has created an opportunity, forcing remote working on scores of companies, and some are embracing the change quite positively. Over the next few months, the Bay Area should expect an exodus of workers from the region to other places deemed cheaper.
from home permanently. While most workers will probably leave these expensive regions for the affordable area, Zillow says that this exodus will not be enough to put downward pressure on the housing prices in the region.
“So as long as you always have more people that want to be in these places than you are building homes to match that growth, you will continue to see home value appreciation over the long
run,” Skylar Olsen, a senior economist at Zillow says. The people who stand to benefit if the companies allow people to work remotely are the people living in other states but have always wanted to be in the tech industry. “If you are not living, or able to live in Silicon Valley or San Francisco, but you still want to work for one of those companies based there, the opportunity for that now becomes much greater,” said Arran Stewart, founder of Job. com.
THE POWER IS NOW MAGAZINE | JULY 2020
