As far as I understand it, there are political interests too. Not just the obvious, ie a city council wanting to see economic movement within the city. Any regular person with a pension likely has money tied up in real estate. Ensuring those pensions maintain value is a concern for governments.
Comment on Why do people say that "return to office" is about raising commercial real estate prices?
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
There’s a lot of dumb answers here.
people say that the motivation is to raise real estate prices
It’s not the sole motivation and it’s not even “a” motivation for some businesses.
Basically, wealthy people generally are going to have all sorts of investments. If you own any commercial property then you’re going to exercise whatever influence you have to support people continuing to work on premise. That influence is often in the form of shareholders putting pressure on management.
jpeps@lemmy.world 11 months ago
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
That’s true, but I didn’t go into that because OP didn’t ask.
Here in Aus local council revenue is a function of property value.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Why would the shareholders of a company want them to take on additional unnecessary expenses like leasing office space?
Or rather, why do real estate company shareholders have such ridiculous levels of influence compared to other groups who would logically prefer more wfh?
Obi@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
Because if you move up the ladder far enough, they’re all the same group. Mister X sits at the board for companies a, b and c, but he also has a real estate portfolio. He’s not the one spending the money for these companies to return to office but he has a vested interest in people returning to office in general, so he lobbies for it wherever he can. Simplified example but you get the gist.
Zippy@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You are grasping at straws if you think the exact same shareholders work both sides in any but a few outlier cases. This is goofy logic that people who are not in management think how companies run.
Obi@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
Do you know what boards of directors are? These people are not running the company they just sit together every so often to give their opinion on shit. They’re sometimes related to the industry sometimes not. Again my example is a massive over-simplification of thousands of small colusions and conflicts of interests which drive these kinds of corporate wills. And for your info I did work in corporate management, not that far from CEOs so I do have an understanding, thankfully left that shit behind now though.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That’s really not how it works. In the same industry sure. But not across vastly different industries like tech, legal, government, etc and real estate.
dwalin@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I would suggest you to check out warren buffets portfolio
DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
It’s insidious.
It’s not influence as in “let’s have a logical and transparent discussion about wfh vs on premise”.
It’s rumours, back channel favours, manipulating numbers, etcetera.
Bear in mind not all companies are publicly traded. Plenty of closely held companies were started by grand dad and run on rumour and here say.