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A growing number of office landlords are defaulting on loan payments as the rise of remote work causes more corporate tenants to rethink long-term leases... The delinquency rate on office loans increased by a quarter percentage point to 1.83% last month .. While the number is still relatively low, the increase was the sharpest of its kind since December 2021. ... The shift away from traditional offices has impacted major firms. Brookfield Asset Management recently disclosed a default on more than $70 million in debt on two office towers in Los Angeles. In Manhattan, real estate firm RXR is reportedly...

I have a full-time job (which is now fully remote, yay) and am looking for more remote part-time work. What people are now calling "overemployed."Question: it seems to me that it's best to have a second phone line for business -- both for security/privacy purposes and just to keep personal and work lives separate. Do others of you do the same? I've looked into dual SIM, Tracfone, Mint Mobile, etc. Virtual phones (Google Voice) have their place but can't be used in every situation (i.e., some places/services will not accept a virtual phone for verification and apparently are able to...

Leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic, roughly 95% of commercial office space was occupied across the United States, according to US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) – a nonprofit, non-government organization. By March 2020, occupancy plummeted to 10%, and has only recovered to 47%, according to a new NBER report which claims $453 billion in office commercial real estate value has been wiped out in an "office real estate apocalypse."Around the US, that resulted in a 17.5 percent decrease in lease revenue between January 2020, and May 2022, and not only because fewer offices were being occupied, but also...

If you missed this story last week, the summary is that there are some real estate experts who believe the pandemic may have created a new normal, one that has major implications for our cities. I can summarize this in three steps.First, when the pandemic hit, there were lots of white collar workers who decided to leave the city and ride out the storm in their 2nd homes in the Hamptons or Vermont or wherever they could go that was away from lots of other people. On top of this, you had the lockdowns which forced many corporations to be...

When millions of office employees started working from home in 2020, the plan for most was eventually to return to work, not stay remote forever. But two and a half years later, many workers really don’t want to go back to the office, and companies are struggling to figure out how to convince them to return, offering enticements like free food, prizes, and even alcoholic beverages to draw workers back. Some companies are getting more creative than that, as this person who wrote to me recounts: "I have seen a lot of lures, and none of them are working. Free...

Labor Day marks the line in the corporate sand. Many company leaders say the end-of-summer holiday represents the best chance to finally lean on workers to return to the office this year. After months of encouraging white-collar employees to return, or attempting to coax them back with free pizza, warm cookies and catered lunches, many executives now say they feel emboldened to take a tougher stance. No longer can workers merely come to the office if they so choose; this fall, executives say, attendance is expected and the office resisters will be put on notice. ... ...After Spotify offered most...

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs will lift all COVID protocols that have kept some workers away as it pushes all employees to return to the office five days a week after Labor Day, The Post has learned. In a memo sent Tuesday obtained by The Post, Goldman Sachs told workers it will no longer require vaccines, COVID testing or masks — a signal it won’t accept excuses for employees who claimed COVID as a reason for working from home. “There is significantly less risk of severe illness,” the memo stated. “In line with [the CDC’s] updated protocols, if you have...

To Jonathan Pruiett, it just didn't make sense. A geospatial analyst who updates Google maps for a living, Pruiett had been called back to his company's offices in Bothell, Washington, five days a week, starting June 6. Like many on his team, Pruiett had only worked remotely, having started the job in the pandemic. He'd adapted well to it, finding efficiencies such as multitasking during virtual meetings, using the time to process data. And yet, now he was being told to report to office. Anyone who failed to report within three days of the return date would be processed as...

A top artificial intelligence executive at Apple is leaving the company over its return-to-office policy, according to a report. The news comes as Apple orders all corporate employees to return to the office for three days per week — a stricter policy than Big Tech competitors like Meta, Google and Amazon, which are allowing at least some employees to work remotely forever. Director of machine learning Ian Goodfellow announced his resignation last week, telling colleagues that CEO Tim Cook’s push to get employees back into the office had driven him out.

A real tragedy. The Democrats have destroyed what was once a gem of a city.Thanks Democrats. You guys and your policies are doing an awesome job. Hey America this could be your town too if you keep voting Democrat. https://t.co/txaMeHyRXh— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 28, 2022Downtown Seattle business continues remote work because of crime, not COVIDBy K5, March 2nd, 2022SEATTLE — A downtown Seattle tech company won’t bring workers back to the office until they feel it’s safe, not because of COVID-19, but crime.Businesses continue to speak out about the ongoing violence in the downtown core, specifically in the...

The Omicron surge has forced businesses to again delay a date for a return to the office. And that means a delay to an inevitable showdown: between workers and managers over remote or office-based work. To a degree, every business will have by now adapted to the reality of a hybrid workplace and the fact some staff will remain home-based while others will come back to the office. Any business that cannot offer a hybrid workplace will face problems in recruitment during this worker shortage. And problems in developing in-house, the skills of managing a modern workforce.HOME MONITORSFor work at...

Even fully remote workers in the automobile industry are subject to a corporate vaccine mandate that threatens the livelihood of those who assert their right to medical freedom.Even fully remote workers in the automobile industry are subject to a corporate vaccine mandate that threatens the livelihood of those who assert their right to medical freedom. An FAQ sent out by the company threatens those who do not comply with the vaccine mandate, warning, “Individuals who do not report their status by December 4, 2021 will be considered unvaccinated.” The penalty for being unvaccinated? “Those who do not meet the vaccination...

When President Biden issued his edict mandating vaccines for all federal employees and contractors, along with employees in private-sector companies with 100 or more employees, there were a lot of questions about how the order would be implemented. We now know the answers to some of the more pressing questions that have been raised and one thing has become abundantly clear: The Biden administration is using 1984 as an instruction manual.The White House issued “Guidance for Federal Contractors and Subcontractors” on Friday detailing the new vaccination policy. The COVID-19 workplace safety protocols “will apply to all covered contractor employees, including...

It's time to sell the business and retire — but that's easier said than done.Gary and Judi Eubanks are one of a kind. Both in their 60s, Judi is a skilled pianist and Gary can often be found playing pick-up basketball with the young people he used to coach. They have two sons and a handful of grandkids, and they’re heavily involved in their local church, where Judi is one of the piano players and Gary is almost always either leading worship or fixing the heating or air conditioning. That’s because the duo also owns All Temperature Systems, a heating,...

A decade ago, as young marrieds with our first baby, my husband and I made plans to leave Washington DC for the American heartland. We had fun living in the city, but we didn’t want to raise our kids there. We’d grown up in flyover country and our childhoods had been greatly benefitted by living farther from the madding crowds.Moving was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. It has been good for us financially, spiritually, and relationally. Although in 2020, like all Americans we endured government and population oppression that suspended our constitutional rights, nobody has escaped those...

“I don’t see any way of avoiding a great deal of pain in the commercial real estate market in 2021. It is almost inevitable. My friends at the Federal Reserve and FDIC are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with what’s going on in the commercial real estate world.”Cam Fine, Former President of Independent Community Bankers of AmericaWFH Threatens Commercial Real Estate ValuationsInvestors hold $3.4T in commercial real estate debt via bonds, direct loans, and securitized loan bundles. Core city commercial real estate valuations could decline if millions of employees work from home (WFH) permanently. Most analysts assume that once virus infections are...

The virus pandemic has accelerated more flexible work options for employees, with many companies instructing employees to work remotely through 2021, or in some cases, permanently. As a result, according to a new survey, CEOs have said they will slash office space, a move that could ripple through commercial real estate markets, all the way down into local economies. In collaboration with Deloitte, Fortune surveyed 171 CEOs between Sept. 23 to 30, found 76% of respondents are expected to reduce office space size in the near term. About 28% of them said they would need "a lot less" corporate...

When half the working class is facing economic devastation and the other half still has to show up to work, are we really all in this together? I’m a lawyer in New York City, currently working from home due to the coronavirus shutdown. For me it’s working quite well. Almost all of my work was done on computer, internet, and phone even when I was doing it in an office, so doing it from a home equipped with a computer, internet, and phone is not really much of an inconvenience. In fact, comparing the distance from my home to my...