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The article buries the lede: > Employers that were really stuck on whether to let people work from home have gotten completely unstuck. And if you can work for

The article buries the lede: > Employers that were really stuck on whether to let people work from home have gotten completely unstuck. And if you can work for Goldman Sachs, but not in New York, if you can work for Amazon, but not in Seattle, well, why would you pay the premium? Vacation rentals impact prices, but are a mere slice of the total market. If tastes and preferences shift away from expensive cities due to remote-work friendly policies, that will have a profound shift on not only housing, but automobiles, gas, etc. People certainly enjoy living in cities, but how many people live in cities exclusively for the physically proximate job access they provide? Time will tell.

untog 6y ago
I'm really curious to see how this actually pans out. As someone who enjoys remote work it's tempting to look at the situation today and say "finally! The fever has broken! Employers will realise how great remote work is!", but in reality a lot of the current remote working situations are a complete shitshow. I think we on HN feel it less because we're already a very tech-literate crowd, so remote video conferencing and collaborative editing (e.g. GitHub) is nothing new to us. But we're not normal in that regard. I wonder if we'll see a sharp swing to the reverse once this pandemic is controlled (however that actually ends up looking). This experience might actually poison people's opinions of remote work in the longer term, not boost them. I hope to be wrong.
- mrits 6y ago
  I've been number crunching the last few weeks for my next startup. I can't compete with big tech companies in salary but I can give the ability for them to relocate to where ever they really want to live. I've been really surprised how many conversations I've had with people interested in giving up huge salaries for the freedom to live where they want.
  - untog 6y ago
    That isn't a new phenomenon though, surely? The idea of leaving SF etc. and working somewhere remote for a better life balance has been a discussion for some time now.
    - mrits 6y ago
      The tech companies aren't just in SF anymore. The salaries they pay in for example, Austin, are roughly the same. The living wage adjustment is kind of a joke. A decade ago I could find senior engineers willing to come on for $70K/year. Now it's hard finding someone under $200K that isn't getting $100K+ in equity.
FanaHOVA 6y ago
I think a large percentage of people live in cities for reasons other than work, whether they know it or not. I think a lot of them idealize living in small cities/rural areas because of space and lower cost of living, but they never actually tried it. I could probably save a lot of money by moving out of NYC, but I'd rather live in a place that gives me access to museums, restaurants, experiences, etc rather than saving money and going to the same 5-10 places over and over.
- mrits 6y ago
  I'd rather see the world than to be stuck in the same city. There is a lot more out there than uniquely arranged food at the newest restaurant.
  - nogabebop23 6y ago
    This is not what the post to which you're replying is advocating, quite the opposite. People in big cities get far more exposure to "the world" than outside of these centers, mostly because the world comes to them every day.
    - mrits 6y ago
      The world doesn't come to NYC. Most of the world could never afford to travel there. What a horrible outlook.
      - noirbot 6y ago
        That may be true, but the world's definitely not coming to whatever small town you'd live in in Upstate NY moreso. Living in a city doesn't mean you never leave it any more than living in the country does.
        mrits 6y ago
        With so many people in NYC spending all their money on rent, it certainly does.
BurningFrog 6y ago
I guess HN is more anti social than average, but I'm convinced that most people want to work with others. I certainly do. That said, there is probably enough pent up demand of people who really want it, for numbers to go up substantially from here.
- meddlepal 6y ago
  I agree with the position that most people like the social aspect of going to work. HN is very very much a bubble in this regard.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    Before I had kids, I loved going to the office. I used to commute 1.5 hours each way to go to the office in San Francisco, because I loved being there and I loved ending my workday in San Francisco, which gave me the chance to take advantage of the cultural activities in San Francisco when I wanted to. But I have kids now. I much prefer working from home, because it gives me the flexibility to go to their mid-day events, or be home in time for (future) after school activities, and just to see them more. Even when my commute was only 12 minutes each way, I would still leave home at 9am and not be back until 7pm. I'd barely get to see the kids that way. For me it's all about being able to see the kids more.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    I don't just like the social aspect, though that's real. I also get more and better work done around people than home alone.
jiveturkey 6y ago
The point of the article is that corporate house buying is coming back strong, and much of this is centered around highly leveraged AirBNB properties. Redfin offers will be way under market (he states "more margin"), so owners are going to take a bath. The real story here is that corporate buying will sink housing prices. Thanks to AirBNB. It's not about remote work.
rb808 6y ago
I wish I was renting an AirBnB by the beach instead of an apartment in a big city. If this quarantine continues I might as well do that.
yardie 6y ago
I live in the city. Having a job in the city is just a bonus. And when I started professionally working I lived in the city and all my jobs were in suburban office parks. So commuting was never a concern because I never really faced the traffic. I love living in the city but not at the prices they were trying to charge. I loved the idea of AirBnB when it was a niche player. The idea of staying in local neighborhoods was really appealing. But now, entire blocks have been converted to AirBnBs and the local neighborhood is just a bunch of tourists and the locals who hate them.
duxup 6y ago
I wonder if this concept really sticks... I worked for a company that was acquired that was based in Minnesota. The acquiring company absolutely could not find warm bodies in the bay area to do ... tech support. So they finally asked if the bumpkins in Minnesota could help out. I traveled out there and everyone was very nice but I had things explained to me like I hadn't used a computer before, or couldn't follow a simple process. One of the directors asked me "What do people in Minnesota do for work?" I told him "Same as around here.", he found that hard to believe and told me about how is team were all high performers in college with fancy degrees and such. Anyway a month later my team is out performing the valley team with higher customer service scores (funny that if you actually call your customers they like it, you can solve problems faster...) and so on. All with a smaller team and at ~2/3rds the price (possibly less). I mean it was just tech support, on some fairly high end equipment. But still it was not rocket science. A few years later to save costs ... they skip Minnesota try disastrously to offshore to India. Then after the company is acquired again they take the opportunity to axe everyone in MN, and again ... can't find anyone to work in the bay... I just don't know, these choices seem sort of institutionalized / culture oriented.
- hownottowrite 6y ago
  Once upon a time I brought a team of star struck developers to the Valley. I reminded them that the people there were not wearing capes and flying to work. They were developers just like any others. It helped settle their minds and funny enough the flyover country developers produced code on par or better than what came out of the Valley.
  - ishjoh 6y ago
    > funny enough the flyover country developers produced code on par or better than what came out of the Valley What would you attribute this to?
    - PenguinCoder 6y ago
      Personally? Less stressful day to day.
squnch 6y ago
I don’t think the remote work culture will last. Remote work is fine when you already know what needs to be done. So it works well in task-based jobs. But in terms of deciding what needs to be done, and planning for the future, only the most exceptionally well-managed companies have managed to make remote work effective.
- ArtDev 6y ago
  Remote work, as a percent of office workers, has been growing for years. I live in a small mountain town where the majority of people bring their jobs with them when they moved here. After working from home (and on workations) for seven years, I finally joined a coworking space. Coworking truly is the best of both worlds. And the ski resort if only a few minutes away. Now, with the shutdowns, I have to work out of my beautiful affordable house. Dang. If you have a job that can be remote, you should. Cities and offices suck!
  - squnch 6y ago
    I think Apple's engineers could develop the next version of the Apple Watch remotely. But I don't think they could come up with the idea and designs for the original Apple Watch remotely.

untog 6y ago

I'm really curious to see how this actually pans out. As someone who enjoys remote work it's tempting to look at the situation today and say "finally! The fever has broken! Employers will realise how great remote work is!", but in reality a lot of the current remote working situations are a complete shitshow. I think we on HN feel it less because we're already a very tech-literate crowd, so remote video conferencing and collaborative editing (e.g. GitHub) is nothing new to us. But we're not normal in that regard. I wonder if we'll see a sharp swing to the reverse once this pandemic is controlled (however that actually ends up looking). This experience might actually poison people's opinions of remote work in the longer term, not boost them. I hope to be wrong.

mrits 6y ago
I've been number crunching the last few weeks for my next startup. I can't compete with big tech companies in salary but I can give the ability for them to relocate to where ever they really want to live. I've been really surprised how many conversations I've had with people interested in giving up huge salaries for the freedom to live where they want.
- untog 6y ago
  That isn't a new phenomenon though, surely? The idea of leaving SF etc. and working somewhere remote for a better life balance has been a discussion for some time now.
  - mrits 6y ago
    The tech companies aren't just in SF anymore. The salaries they pay in for example, Austin, are roughly the same. The living wage adjustment is kind of a joke. A decade ago I could find senior engineers willing to come on for $70K/year. Now it's hard finding someone under $200K that isn't getting $100K+ in equity.

FanaHOVA 6y ago

I think a large percentage of people live in cities for reasons other than work, whether they know it or not. I think a lot of them idealize living in small cities/rural areas because of space and lower cost of living, but they never actually tried it. I could probably save a lot of money by moving out of NYC, but I'd rather live in a place that gives me access to museums, restaurants, experiences, etc rather than saving money and going to the same 5-10 places over and over.

mrits 6y ago
I'd rather see the world than to be stuck in the same city. There is a lot more out there than uniquely arranged food at the newest restaurant.
- nogabebop23 6y ago
  This is not what the post to which you're replying is advocating, quite the opposite. People in big cities get far more exposure to "the world" than outside of these centers, mostly because the world comes to them every day.
  - mrits 6y ago
    The world doesn't come to NYC. Most of the world could never afford to travel there. What a horrible outlook.
    - noirbot 6y ago
      That may be true, but the world's definitely not coming to whatever small town you'd live in in Upstate NY moreso. Living in a city doesn't mean you never leave it any more than living in the country does.
      - mrits 6y ago
        With so many people in NYC spending all their money on rent, it certainly does.

BurningFrog 6y ago

I guess HN is more anti social than average, but I'm convinced that most people want to work with others. I certainly do. That said, there is probably enough pent up demand of people who really want it, for numbers to go up substantially from here.

meddlepal 6y ago
I agree with the position that most people like the social aspect of going to work. HN is very very much a bubble in this regard.
- jedberg 6y ago
  Before I had kids, I loved going to the office. I used to commute 1.5 hours each way to go to the office in San Francisco, because I loved being there and I loved ending my workday in San Francisco, which gave me the chance to take advantage of the cultural activities in San Francisco when I wanted to. But I have kids now. I much prefer working from home, because it gives me the flexibility to go to their mid-day events, or be home in time for (future) after school activities, and just to see them more. Even when my commute was only 12 minutes each way, I would still leave home at 9am and not be back until 7pm. I'd barely get to see the kids that way. For me it's all about being able to see the kids more.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  I don't just like the social aspect, though that's real. I also get more and better work done around people than home alone.

jiveturkey 6y ago

The point of the article is that corporate house buying is coming back strong, and much of this is centered around highly leveraged AirBNB properties. Redfin offers will be way under market (he states "more margin"), so owners are going to take a bath. The real story here is that corporate buying will sink housing prices. Thanks to AirBNB. It's not about remote work.

rb808 6y ago

I wish I was renting an AirBnB by the beach instead of an apartment in a big city. If this quarantine continues I might as well do that.

yardie 6y ago

I live in the city. Having a job in the city is just a bonus. And when I started professionally working I lived in the city and all my jobs were in suburban office parks. So commuting was never a concern because I never really faced the traffic. I love living in the city but not at the prices they were trying to charge. I loved the idea of AirBnB when it was a niche player. The idea of staying in local neighborhoods was really appealing. But now, entire blocks have been converted to AirBnBs and the local neighborhood is just a bunch of tourists and the locals who hate them.

duxup 6y ago

I wonder if this concept really sticks... I worked for a company that was acquired that was based in Minnesota. The acquiring company absolutely could not find warm bodies in the bay area to do ... tech support. So they finally asked if the bumpkins in Minnesota could help out. I traveled out there and everyone was very nice but I had things explained to me like I hadn't used a computer before, or couldn't follow a simple process. One of the directors asked me "What do people in Minnesota do for work?" I told him "Same as around here.", he found that hard to believe and told me about how is team were all high performers in college with fancy degrees and such. Anyway a month later my team is out performing the valley team with higher customer service scores (funny that if you actually call your customers they like it, you can solve problems faster...) and so on. All with a smaller team and at ~2/3rds the price (possibly less). I mean it was just tech support, on some fairly high end equipment. But still it was not rocket science. A few years later to save costs ... they skip Minnesota try disastrously to offshore to India. Then after the company is acquired again they take the opportunity to axe everyone in MN, and again ... can't find anyone to work in the bay... I just don't know, these choices seem sort of institutionalized / culture oriented.

hownottowrite 6y ago
Once upon a time I brought a team of star struck developers to the Valley. I reminded them that the people there were not wearing capes and flying to work. They were developers just like any others. It helped settle their minds and funny enough the flyover country developers produced code on par or better than what came out of the Valley.
- ishjoh 6y ago
  > funny enough the flyover country developers produced code on par or better than what came out of the Valley What would you attribute this to?
  - PenguinCoder 6y ago
    Personally? Less stressful day to day.

squnch 6y ago

I don’t think the remote work culture will last. Remote work is fine when you already know what needs to be done. So it works well in task-based jobs. But in terms of deciding what needs to be done, and planning for the future, only the most exceptionally well-managed companies have managed to make remote work effective.

ArtDev 6y ago
Remote work, as a percent of office workers, has been growing for years. I live in a small mountain town where the majority of people bring their jobs with them when they moved here. After working from home (and on workations) for seven years, I finally joined a coworking space. Coworking truly is the best of both worlds. And the ski resort if only a few minutes away. Now, with the shutdowns, I have to work out of my beautiful affordable house. Dang. If you have a job that can be remote, you should. Cities and offices suck!
- squnch 6y ago
  I think Apple's engineers could develop the next version of the Apple Watch remotely. But I don't think they could come up with the idea and designs for the original Apple Watch remotely.