Nah, micro is the superior option! 😜

Ah thanks for the context, I didn’t know! But doesn’t my point essentially stills stand?

As more people work from home and more Flatiron-like buildings struggle to find businesses looking for offices, developers might find “ex prestigious office to luxury apartments” a more appealing conversion than “ex Walmart to affordable housing”.

Also, my understanding of the housing crisis is that people can’t find an affordable place to live close enough to where they work. In my country there are plenty of small towns that used to be very pretty places to live, that have very affordable housing and that are turning into ghost towns because all the jobs are concentrated in a few big cities.

If you take away the offices, less people are going to need to live in New York, San Francisco or London. Plenty of people might still choose to, of course, but there should be less competition to rent the last bed space in a filthy apartment at ludicrous prices. Or to buy a small flat in a converted former office.

I like how this is finally acknowledging WFH as something that is here to stay but I’m not sure I understand the connection with the housing crisis. From the article:

New York’s famous Flatiron Building will soon be converted from empty offices into luxury residences

Luxury apartments in premium locations is the first thing I would think of too if I were a developer, but their target buyers don’t sound like the sort of people who currently suffer from the housing crisis. But maybe I’m wrong and there will also be developers converting less prestigious office space into affordable housing…

The other thing I don’t get is this: I don’t know Manhattan but I did work in some (I assume) similar business hubs in the middle of overpriced cities and I wonder: are many people going to want to live in expensive converted office spaces if they don’t work near there any longer? I mean if they were given the chance to WFH from anywhere would they still choose Manhattan? Honest question and maybe the answer is yes, because of the restaurants, culture, good schools or whatever… I would personally make different life choices if I could work completely remote, though.