I’m staying at my daughter’s house in Seattle right now. Her husband owns his own business and has been working from home as well as he ~40 employees. He’s also in a CEO group. He said that a LOT of Seattle businesses are going all WFH and even he said he has hired his last Seattle employee - at seattle wages.
He is a liberal, but one thing we agree on - a lot of businesses are going to be either leaving Seattle or keeping their headquarters here, but all their employees will be scattered across the country. One thing keeping him here, personally, is he makes quite a bit of income and Washington is a “no income tax” state.
He may be headed for Tennessee, though. One of my other daughters and her husband did move to Louisville from Seattle and they absolutely love it. He doesn’t earn as much so the income tax was offset by the low real estate and sales tax.
This will be the last of my daughters to leave Seattle. I think other cities are going to be seeing a similar flight, if people are only leaving for more rural areas of the same state. It is very expensive to maintain offices in most cities, especially if this lockdown has proven that you don’t need to.
BTW, one change he mentioned was that if you are in the office it is important to be there before everybody gets in and be the last to leave, even if you may not have much to do that day. Now he works from home and does his work, however long that takes, and spends a LOT more time with his wife and young child. It is a serious quality of life improvement.
You said he’s a liberal, try not to send him here to the South please? We’ve takin ungodly amounts of flack over the years just trying to keep the place decent.