In the last 6 months, the most noticeable trend I've seen in home buyers wish lists is does this home have a home office? As a result, home sellers are even staging their homes with desks and chairs to include not one, but TWO offices in their home.

And that makes sense. It seems like most American office workers are working from home most days of the week. But before you fully convert your formal dining room (we eat standing up anyway!) or your kids playroom (they are getting too old for that!) to a home office, ask yourself if this will even be the trend in 2022. Because like most trends in real estate, when they become unpopular, they will be VERY unpopular.

Will Workers Choose Where They Work?

I came across this article in the Harvard Business Journal. They wrote about companies allowing employees to determine whether or not they work from home. I found this part most interesting about WFH (Work From Home):

Working from home
while your colleagues are in the office can be highly damaging to your career. In a 2014 study I ran in China in a large multinational we randomized 250 volunteers into a group that worked remotely for four days a week and another group that remained in the office full time. We found that WFH employees had a 50% lower rate of promotion after 21 months compared to their office colleagues. This huge WFH promotion penalty chimes with comments I’ve heard over the years from managers. They often confided that home-based employees in their teams get passed over on promotions because they are out of touch with the office.

It is debatable whether that study would have the same results in a post-COVID world. But even if the percentage was cut in HALF, would you work from your home office if you knew your chance at promotion was 25% less than your co-workers?

There are other reasons to work from home, obviously. Work/life balance is at the top of the list. Another big reason to stay at a home office was best stated by a client of mine. He told me, "this is now policy for where I work. Three days at home, two days at the office. And there's not indication that policy will change in the next six months."

Before you decide that WFH is the new normal, you might want to see if the workplace adjusts as drastically as it had to this time last year.