Less office more home

I don't think knowledge workers - or people working on computers - I don't think any of these people, any of us, want to go back to the office. We know what the office is like, we know its advantages, we know all the good reasons why sometimes it's preferable to be in the office.

Workers do not want to go to the office, and if you look at the success the tech industry during COVID, I think you'll see that the tech sector will thrive even when employees cannot congregate at the office. Remote work: video conferencing, collaboration software, cloud computing. Amazon, Shopify, marketplaces. Streaming and gaming platforms. Telehealth and EdTech. Innovation acceleration in AI, robotics and automation. A case can be made that this part of the economy was doing fine, thank you very much. I'm assuming this extends to sectors where work can be done on a computer

Computers are everywhere. Our civilization is enormously computerized. We provide services to each other, we collaborate, we transact and we love each other. And most of the time, it involves at least one computer.

Nobody wants to go to the office. Managers want you to go to the office because managers are told to bring you to the office. When reporting to investors it is important to show that all this very expensive office space has not been acquired for nothing and that it is not going to amount to a financial mistake . The office is there. It costs money. It has been a decision by the exec suite and now it needs to make sense for a few years. Such leases or purchases are very long term in nature. Many, many quarters. Quarterly reports are where you'll find these expenses, amortized. Large expenses. Capital being spent. The board reviews this. It is important to please the board.
So, really, the board wants us in the office because the office is expensive.
This is backwards. And when thinking is backwards enough, there is room for disruption. There is room for correction. I believe office space will lack demand in the coming years. I believe the office space currently lacks a ton of demand, but it might not be surfaced honestly or fully admitted by its participants.

An August 2023 New York Times article tells us New York City is affording itself a bit more flexibility in rezoning. Allowing for office space to be transformed into housing. Sure, it'll take years. But the gates are open. There's a housing crisis in NYC.
7 days ago, same city, this offish-looking, very mainstream piece explained that 10 to 15% of office real estate can be converted into housing. Oh, and there's a property being converted, in the same piece. 160 Water St.

I celebrate this trend. I'm all for it. Fewer offices means less time for us to spend in offices, generally. If you're inclined towards the reasonable use of our resources, less commuting should make sense to you. Commuting is highly energy-inefficient. Especially in the US where there is not enough public transportation and too many travel alone, by car.

This trend is good for cities. Cities get more residents, less transitory workers. Transitory workers don't care as much about places they traverse, surely not as much as residents of the neighborhood do. More housing supply should make living in cities more affordable. Cities are for people. The people make the city.

I dig this trend despite the fact that I like going to the office, that I like collaborating with good coworkers. I particularly like meeting my coworkers in person when it is justified or desired, ad hoc or on a rare cadence. Bursts of togetherness with a purpose.

There's a trend. It's a good one. How do we play it?

More residential supply means residential should lose value. We’re looking at a glute in home real estate and a potential downwards price adjustment. I don’t want to play this. I don’t want to benefit from this downside, from what could be considered value destruction. I want more homes because I want everyone to have a home. So I’m not going to short the residential sector.

Short the commercial real estate? Shorting office space, I wouldn’t mind. I think offices are necessary but I don’t believe we need so many work megaliths in cities. A city shouldn’t be defined by its offices. A city should be for people.
Next step? Is there a short office space ETF? well, it doesn’t seem so. There’s an industrial/office space ETF though. Buy Put?

Sometimes, you have to put your money where your mouth is. Actually, we should all consider saying nothing if we can’t back up our next words with some stake in it.

So, help me out, how do I hyperstition this bad boy?