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Related: About this forumAirbnb Shows How San Francisco's Office Shortage Is Suddenly a Historic Glut
Airbnb Shows How San Franciscos Office Shortage Is Suddenly a Historic Glut: Hogging Vacant Space for a Future that Never Came
by Wolf Richter May 19, 2021
They all did it, from Salesforce, Uber, and Twitter on down. It was pure magic, a show produced with enormous hype. Now theyre all trying to get out at the same time.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
When Airbnb reported a net loss of $1.17 billion for Q1 last week, it also disclosed in its shareholder letter that this loss included a $113 million expense that it expects as it is trying to exit an office lease in San Francisco that we deemed no longer necessary given our restructuring and cost cutting efforts.
The $113 million expense represents its estimate of the difference between what it would get by subleasing the space to new tenants and what it will have to pay the landlord and related expenses over the remaining term of the lease. But thats a cheaper way out than letting it sit vacant and paying the landlord until the lease terminates.
Whats fascinating about this is just how much office space Airbnb had secured with long-term office leases during the years of the so-called office shortage that it never even occupied, and that by leasing office space that it didnt need, it had further increased the office shortage at the time.
Airbnbs disclosure relates to its 287,000 square feet (sf) at 650 Townsend St. in the South of Market area. According to the San Francisco Business Times, Airbnb had leased the space in 2017 for a term of nine years. But it only ever occupied 170,000 sf of it. The rest had remained vacant for all these years. ...........(more)
https://wolfstreet.com/2021/05/19/airbnb-shows-how-san-franciscos-office-shortage-is-suddenly-a-historic-glut-hogging-vacant-space-for-a-future-that-never-came/
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Airbnb Shows How San Francisco's Office Shortage Is Suddenly a Historic Glut (Original Post)
marmar
May 2021
OP
Warpy
(111,277 posts)1. Telecommuting is so much cheaper
It means workers supply their own infrastructure--office space, internet hookup, equipment maintenance--while they only need convention facilities for the infrequent employee on site meetings.
It's just one more thing that's been pushed off on our backs. Mass transit became cars--at our expense. Pay phones became cell phones--at our expense. Office space is now carved out of our living space--at our expense.
jimfields33
(15,823 posts)2. Good point.
Id add pensions too.
Warpy
(111,277 posts)3. Right, while our buying power has decreased steadily
and wages don't allow us to shoulder all those other burdens completely, never mind save for when we can't work any more.