Permanent flexible work to drive up house prices for years to come Business

A permanent shift to working from home is expected to reduce office demand, drive up house prices for years to come and even end the flagship retail store, experts said.

Demand for office space will decline by about a fifth, according to analysts at Barclays, as the majority of bosses plan to make at least some degree of Covid-era telecommuting a long-term feature of their businesses.

Greater flexibility, time savings on commuting, lower costs and higher productivity were all cited as reasons why more employees work from home for at least part of the week.

Just under a quarter of employers said they would not encourage staff to work from home after the pandemic.

“People have discovered that working remotely can be extremely productive. As a result, we expect the demand for office space to be reduced by up to 20%,” the report said in the bank’s annual Equity Gilt study.

Offices will “remain critical” but “the function of the office will change, becoming the meeting place for social interactions and a place for collaboration and discussion inspiring creativity, informal training and general communication, as opposed to process and communication. task-oriented space. this has often been the case in the past.