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I feel like permanent WFH is outsourcing real estate costs to the worker. This isn’t a big deal for some, since one may live alone or already have a home office

I feel like permanent WFH is outsourcing real estate costs to the worker. This isn’t a big deal for some, since one may live alone or already have a home office, but it gets burdensome if there is more than one home worker in a household.

digianarchist 6y ago
I'm OK with this. WFH means I can cut my mortgage costs by 50%.
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  How?
  - gundmc 6y ago
    Move somewhere cheaper I suspect.
    - IshKebab 6y ago
      Then your pay will be cut too. Lots of people think that is unfair because you are doing the same work, but those people just don't understand that salaries are market based. Also you might think "my company doesn't cut salaries", or "I just won't say I've moved". That might work if you stay at the same company for the rest of your life, but if you move jobs there's no way you'd get the same deal.
      - t-writescode 6y ago
        I believe that depends on the company. Facebook? Sure, I think I saw an article about that for Facebook. Other places? Maybe not. Often times, there's plenty of places that are _totally_ within commuting distance, but really aren't. Do you think Facebook would lower someone's wages for living in Davis rather than Palo Alto or San Jose?
        IshKebab 6y ago
        > Do you think Facebook would lower someone's wages for living in Davis rather than Palo Alto or San Jose? Yes of course. You only think that would be surprising because until now companies can tailor salaries to the office location, based on the reasonable assumption that most people will live nearby, and the annoyance of commuting long distances will roughly cancel out the lower cost of living. As soon as the annoyance of commuting is removed they will definitely take into account your cost of living.
- bredren 6y ago
  Or not buy / maintain a car and spend hours a week commuting.
  - lucidguppy 6y ago
    Its a large chunk of your life they're giving back to you. It will help cut carbon too.
myth_drannon 6y ago
In Canada you can get income tax breaks if you use part of your home as an office.
analog31 6y ago
I suspect this is one of those cases where there are temporary winners and losers. In places where housing was less expensive, such as much of the Midwest, a lot of people over-bought, so we have space that we didn't really need anyway, and that was idle during the entire work / school day. I work in hardware development, and moved an entire lab to my house. I could think about what it's costing me to maintain this space and pay taxes on it, or think about the fact that I still have a job. And it would be hard to imagine this work being done in a lower cost region. We had 4 people working from home until the school year ended. But the kids are old enough to be reasonably self sufficient during the day. It's actually been pretty easy. Younger colleagues who are living in starter homes, or apartments, and have small kids, are having to figure out more compromises. Places with extremely expensive real estate also have higher salaries, at least for tech workers, so those folks may still be ahead of us Midwesterners. Even before the COVID, there was a trend towards people buying a bit of extra space to set aside just in case their careers turned towards consulting or other similar work. It's anybody's guess what the future holds.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I was almost entirely WFH before but, yes, if I were still commuting, this would be a big savings of both time and cost. And I don't even have a bad commute--about 30 mins each way. On the other side, I have a house with a dedicated office that would be well equipped whether I used it for a work office or not. I did have to replace my good home office chair after this started, but I would have wanted to do that anyway. On the other hand, if you're in a studio city apartment, don't want to leave the city, and can normally walk to work, renting a co-working space or a larger apartment obviously isn't a great financial deal relative to going into an office. That said, I doubt many companies will eliminate their offices for people who want to go in. But it may be a while. And I know people moving out of the city--at least some permanently.
jjcm 6y ago
FWIW Atlassian has been giving us a bunch of perks to account for this since the COVID-wfh started. We've had extra days off to account for the stress of a different lifestyle and home office budgets to purchase things we need. It's not going so far as to pay us enough to offset the rent of a dedicated home office room, but they're still quite nice perks. The Australian government is helping out quite a bit too - there are many additional benefits this tax season for those who are working from home.
noir_lord 6y ago
If we count putting the gear on/taking it off my motorcycle commute costs me 10hrs a week on top of my 40hrs (currently). That's time I can't get back or do anything with - compared to the remote position I just accepted (on higher pay ironically) I'll take the nominal increase in costs of working from home over that, intention was to buy a house next year and convert the garage into one half motorcycle workshop, one half office so I'll just accelerate those plans potentially.
zelphirkalt 6y ago
If my employer told me, that I could do the same, work from home, but have to buy my IT stuff and other things myself, I'd gladly do that, up to the point of approximately 1/6 of my wage, perhaps more. The point is, that it would save me so much time, that the cost is easily justified. In Covid-19 times I don't need to wear a mask at home and I don't need to be worried about not wearing one. I can have lunch in peace, without worrying about aerosols hitting my food.

digianarchist 6y ago

I'm OK with this. WFH means I can cut my mortgage costs by 50%.

DangitBobby 6y ago
How?
- gundmc 6y ago
  Move somewhere cheaper I suspect.
  - IshKebab 6y ago
    Then your pay will be cut too. Lots of people think that is unfair because you are doing the same work, but those people just don't understand that salaries are market based. Also you might think "my company doesn't cut salaries", or "I just won't say I've moved". That might work if you stay at the same company for the rest of your life, but if you move jobs there's no way you'd get the same deal.
    - t-writescode 6y ago
      I believe that depends on the company. Facebook? Sure, I think I saw an article about that for Facebook. Other places? Maybe not. Often times, there's plenty of places that are _totally_ within commuting distance, but really aren't. Do you think Facebook would lower someone's wages for living in Davis rather than Palo Alto or San Jose?
      - IshKebab 6y ago
        > Do you think Facebook would lower someone's wages for living in Davis rather than Palo Alto or San Jose? Yes of course. You only think that would be surprising because until now companies can tailor salaries to the office location, based on the reasonable assumption that most people will live nearby, and the annoyance of commuting long distances will roughly cancel out the lower cost of living. As soon as the annoyance of commuting is removed they will definitely take into account your cost of living.
bredren 6y ago
Or not buy / maintain a car and spend hours a week commuting.
- lucidguppy 6y ago
  Its a large chunk of your life they're giving back to you. It will help cut carbon too.

myth_drannon 6y ago

In Canada you can get income tax breaks if you use part of your home as an office.

analog31 6y ago

I suspect this is one of those cases where there are temporary winners and losers. In places where housing was less expensive, such as much of the Midwest, a lot of people over-bought, so we have space that we didn't really need anyway, and that was idle during the entire work / school day. I work in hardware development, and moved an entire lab to my house. I could think about what it's costing me to maintain this space and pay taxes on it, or think about the fact that I still have a job. And it would be hard to imagine this work being done in a lower cost region. We had 4 people working from home until the school year ended. But the kids are old enough to be reasonably self sufficient during the day. It's actually been pretty easy. Younger colleagues who are living in starter homes, or apartments, and have small kids, are having to figure out more compromises. Places with extremely expensive real estate also have higher salaries, at least for tech workers, so those folks may still be ahead of us Midwesterners. Even before the COVID, there was a trend towards people buying a bit of extra space to set aside just in case their careers turned towards consulting or other similar work. It's anybody's guess what the future holds.

ghaff 6y ago
I was almost entirely WFH before but, yes, if I were still commuting, this would be a big savings of both time and cost. And I don't even have a bad commute--about 30 mins each way. On the other side, I have a house with a dedicated office that would be well equipped whether I used it for a work office or not. I did have to replace my good home office chair after this started, but I would have wanted to do that anyway. On the other hand, if you're in a studio city apartment, don't want to leave the city, and can normally walk to work, renting a co-working space or a larger apartment obviously isn't a great financial deal relative to going into an office. That said, I doubt many companies will eliminate their offices for people who want to go in. But it may be a while. And I know people moving out of the city--at least some permanently.

jjcm 6y ago

FWIW Atlassian has been giving us a bunch of perks to account for this since the COVID-wfh started. We've had extra days off to account for the stress of a different lifestyle and home office budgets to purchase things we need. It's not going so far as to pay us enough to offset the rent of a dedicated home office room, but they're still quite nice perks. The Australian government is helping out quite a bit too - there are many additional benefits this tax season for those who are working from home.

noir_lord 6y ago

If we count putting the gear on/taking it off my motorcycle commute costs me 10hrs a week on top of my 40hrs (currently). That's time I can't get back or do anything with - compared to the remote position I just accepted (on higher pay ironically) I'll take the nominal increase in costs of working from home over that, intention was to buy a house next year and convert the garage into one half motorcycle workshop, one half office so I'll just accelerate those plans potentially.

zelphirkalt 6y ago

If my employer told me, that I could do the same, work from home, but have to buy my IT stuff and other things myself, I'd gladly do that, up to the point of approximately 1/6 of my wage, perhaps more. The point is, that it would save me so much time, that the cost is easily justified. In Covid-19 times I don't need to wear a mask at home and I don't need to be worried about not wearing one. I can have lunch in peace, without worrying about aerosols hitting my food.