Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Dear Your Overseas Dream Home Reader,
“Are you returning to the office?”
I’ve been hearing this question a lot these days, and my response is always the same.
“I don’t have an office to return to.”
My team and I have always worked remotely. Our “office” is entirely virtual. Most of our business is conducted on platforms like Slack, Zoom, and WhatsApp.
If we want to meet up in person for a brainstorming session or to socialize, we do. The rest of the time we each live wherever we want. I’ve team members in Mexico, Colombia, Ireland, and even a few who are slow traveling the world in search of their ideal base.
The idea of having an actual office with cubicles and a literal water cooler now seems quaint to me. A holdover from another century. The stuff of sitcoms.
And today, while the world collectively asks, “Are we returning to the office?” most people are coming to the same conclusion.
The pandemic has accelerated many trends, but on my Real Estate Trend Alert beat the most significant is the fast-forwarding of the “work from anywhere” phenomenon.
Since March 2020, millions of people have realized that working from home is not just possible, it’s preferable. And many will never go back.
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Twitter, for example, will allow for working from home indefinitely. Microsoft will allow managers to approve permanent work from home arrangements for select employees.
Music streaming service Spotify announced its workers can work from anywhere. And Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that up to 50% of their employees could be working remotely in the next five to 10 years.
And it’s not just tech businesses. Even Ford Motors, the most iconic company of America’s great industrial age is offering remote work.
The significance of this shift can’t be understated. Historic social changes sometimes feel ordinary and underwhelming when you’re living through them, but make no mistake, this is akin to the great urban migration during the industrial age. Working habits will change, and so too will living habits…
That’s why, as a real estate investor, I’ve been following this trend with intense interest long before the pandemic made it mainstream.
The thing is, when people change their living habits, they often change their housing habits, too. And this “work from anywhere” revolution is the biggest shift I’ve seen in my lifetime.
It’s an opportunity to get in at the ground floor of one of the biggest social changes of the 21st century, by owning the most valuable asset to remote workers…desirable rentals in stunning, low-cost destinations.
You see, untethered from the office, remote workers now have a world of possibilities.
Why work from home if you’re paying $3,000 a month to live in a studio in San Francisco?
Or why work from home when you’re living in the Midwest and it’s winter?
Folks are asking themselves these questions and realizing the smart thing to do is move somewhere cheaper, somewhere warmer, where they can live in a spacious condo for a fraction of what they used to pay and spend their evenings sipping on piña coladas next to a stunning white-sand beach.
Internationalized destinations that benefit from what I’m calling the “Zoom Boom” not only see a surge of new renters, but also renters who will stay for longer periods, even in the low season.
In the right destination this creates a killer opportunity…
By identifying the most desirable destination ahead of the surge, we can own something incredibly profitable.
But the time to act is now. This window of opportunity won’t stay open forever.
Wishing you good real estate investing,
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Ronan McMahon, Real Estate Trend Alert
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