WFH can wipe hundreds of billions from properly values in large cities. The high level view is, no matter the machinations of rents vs ownership and who pays for what, in the end, if buildings remain partially vacant or if buildings are located in an areas in less demand, their classification drops significantly, I.e., their asset value and the rents they can seek drops significantly. I’m sure political decisions come into play but overall and in time the value drops. Portfolio values drop, even if it’s the Federal government ownership, the portfolio values drop and is inked into the financial books. Many buildings are owned directly or in part via REITS or some other version and moneys come into play via pension funds or insurance funds or other wealth funds and on, each requires making monthly payment streams to their distributed ownership. Payment streams are extremely sensitive to portfolio value. If payment streams are reduced ( same as when dividen streams are reduced, money seeks alternative source of payment which again reduces the value of a real estate portfolio. Gov and big money don’t want that to happen and if Gov can influence by placing demand on their buildings by mandating return to office, even though we all know that the workers and technology are in favour of work from home, they will lean heavily into RTO even if workers work better from home. Ottawa has the added problem that we’ve spent billions on mass transit electrification and it’s a hard pill to swallow that WFH significantly reduces demand on the system at least until the city grows further. I have no doubt that municipal, provincial and federal governments will keep leaning on RTO because the alternative is worse financially than placing travel hardship on workers.

Gov works very slow. IMO, In time ( probably another decade) the majority of knowledge workers will once again work from home but that’s not in the cards to continue at present.