HACKER Q&A
📣 RestlessMind

Why do people think RTO is related to propping up CRE


I see a repeating theme on HN that CEOs calling for RTO are doing so to preserve commercial real estate values. That sounds absolutely bonkers. I can understand megacorps with fancy HQs. But most of the companies have leased offices (see: Twitter) and those leases are typically 3-5 years so will expire in an year or so.

Any good citations about the link between RTO and motivations to preserve CRE?

  👤 smt88 Accepted Answer ✓
Most of my clients are in CRE, so I have some insight into this.

There are no good citations because those people are wrong. They assume that all the bad guys have the same motivations.

The CEOs want RTO because:

- some do have leases they can't get out of (yet)

- it's easier to control and observe employees in the office

- working from home is a huge change that they don't trust

The owners of the office buildings mostly don't care that the buildings are becoming worthless because it's not their problem. They bought the building with a loan, they already made the ROI they need from the deal, and they know they're going to make boatloads of money buying depressed assets.

So they hand the keys back to the bank, wash their hands of it, and wait for prices to drop. The CRE investors make money in all market conditions because they're huge and can exploit anything.

The people who are truly desperate for RTO (and powerless to do anything about it) are the banks who will get back these depressed assets. There's an absolutely enormous amount of value that will be wiped off of banks' books in the next few years (which is potentially a major economic problem, but we'll see).