Properties: Unclaimed Homes with Home Office

Renters and Home Buyers are bucking the home office trend due to the widespread return to traditional office space. The office that almost everyone created during the pandemic is no longer needed and is being replaced by other uses.

As workers return to office routines, once-coveted space is no longer a key demand in the real estate market, the Wall Street Journal reports. The reversal of prevailing sentiment in 2020 compared to today was documented in a recent study by real estate platform Zillow, which found that keywords such as “home office” and “cloffice” were mentioned significantly less frequently in the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period last year.

Outside the home
According to real estate agent Carrie Holle of Compass in Indiana, home offices are no longer as central to the selling process as they were during the pandemic. “Back then, if a house had double rooms that could be used as home offices, I would include that in the first line of the description,” she says. “But now it might just be left out because it doesn’t matter anymore and , more importantly, demand.”

Zillow economist Jeff Tucker analyzed the total number of home sales in the United States from January 1 to June 30 and found that among those that included a listing description, keywords “home office” and “Zoom space” were found in 41% fewer advertisements compared to advertisements for the same period last year.

Keyword “cloffice”, which was coined to describe converting a closet into a work area, appears in 54% fewer ads. Tucker estimates it’s unusual for mentions of previously popular features like home offices to decline so quickly in a year. According to the study, even the general term “office” decreased by 0.4% compared to last year, which allowed it to enter the top ten functions for which the largest decline in citations was observed.

Return to your old life

“This trend doesn’t mean people are getting rid of home offices, but as hybrid work schedules become more common, buyers are looking at other amenities when looking for a home.”adds Jeff Cecco, Tennessee home builder and relocation manager for the Ashton Real Estate Group of RE/MAX Advantage.

Given word limits on platforms like Zillow, Cecco says his team is now focused on covering pre-pandemic features that are once again becoming increasingly important, such as kitchen quality and number of bathrooms. Of course, in the high-end market, home offices have always been a requirement, so buyers already know that such space exists or that there is a room that can be converted into it.

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