It's exciting: How will companies react in the long run if many offices in their headquarters are now empty because of the home office?
After the pandemic, it was often said that we would have to wait and see how it all developed.
It is now clear that many employees, especially in the service industries, often take advantage of the opportunity to work from home. This is good and can improve people's quality of life, even if it poses a challenge for companies to ensure institutional cohesion. Perhaps this development is even an example of the fact that it sometimes takes a crisis in Germany for something to change for the better.
However, the latest study by the Ifo Institute also shows the consequences: On an average working day, 12.3 percent of offices in German companies are now empty, and the proportion has roughly tripled.
In the long run, it is certainly not very efficient to simply leave offices empty. It's no wonder that some of the new company headquarters that are being designed these days are a little smaller than they would have been in the past. It is also interesting that real estate experts report a higher interest from companies in subletting in their building.
Nevertheless, according to all that one hears, it has not yet been observed in the real estate market that the demand for office space as a whole has collapsed.