Peter wrote:
The FTSE100 doesn’t appear to be discounting a massive recession
You are right – it isn’t.
Discounting is the right word. Future cashflow expectations going down, offset by much, much lower discount rates (negative interest rates). For those into the “currency debasing” debate, interesting to think about who did do well during Germany’s hyper inflation: shareholders and private business owners. Cf this really interesting book, When Money Dies, about the period (and fascinating as a Frenchman to learn that most of this was consciously driven by Germany’s desire to escape its Versailles Treaty obligations – I’m sure the Greeks would love to try it).
Peter wrote:
The FTSE100 doesn’t appear to be discounting a massive recession
I haven’t changed my retirement funding stock holdings, and don’t plan to do so. Most of the rest is in housing, which I see as stable in my area. What I’m doing, as described above, is adjust in relation to things I’ve already seen change for the worse with my own eyes. When 80% of the staff doesn’t come to work any more and pretends to work from home, it matters long term even if many of them don’t do much anyway, and it’s not inconceivable that in the end it could affect my wage income. I’m cutting my dependence on wage income approximately in half through refinancing debt at lower interest rates, property improvements to increase rental income a bit, paying off small mortgages etc.
Unfortunately for me, pretending to work for many in my world involves a huge amount of talking about nothing on the phone or video, which then further reduces the effectiveness of those still doing something useful.
I think this is done on an individual basis, if I were five years older and closer to retirement I would already be set up in the same way, so for me this is either an acceleration or a pause, time will tell.
I am doing nothing on investments. Too early to call, I think.
Sadly very true about “working from home”. In general, productivity is at best way down in WFH, even with supposedly self motivated people like programmers. One can tear one’s bloody hair out sometimes. If the guy was working in the office, and had some issue, throwing it around a few people tends to quickly produce a solution. Well, an experienced programmer will work it out but they are rare nowadays. Today, everybody is an “architect” or “artisan” 
One solution is to pay per-project but then you get junk because it tends to get rushed.
And most people cannot WFH at all; they just bugger off down the beach. This ball has been kicked around god knows how many times in the last few decades. It simply isn’t going to happen.
Peter wrote:
Sadly very true about “working from home”. In general, productivity is at best way down in WFH, even with supposedly self motivated people like programmers. One can tear one’s bloody hair out sometimes. If the guy was working in the office, and had some issue, throwing it around a few people tends to quickly produce a solution. Well, an experienced programmer will work it out but they are rare nowadays. Today, everybody is an “architect” or “artisan”One solution is to pay per-project but then you get junk because it tends to get rushed.
And most people cannot WFH at all; they just bugger off down the beach. This ball has been kicked around god knows how many times in the last few decades. It simply isn’t going to happen.
In my industry (pharmaceuticals) WFH is the norm and has been for some time now. I have worked from home full time since 2013. Going into the office would cost me 3 hours each day and because no-one in my part of the business is in that office (most of what we do is international) I would be driving there to sit on my own, perhaps saying hi to the receptionist twice a day.
Recent events have shown that you can send just about everyone to work from home at a company like ours and it all just keeps working. No doubt our leadership will be looking at how much expensive office space they have and how much they really need.
I totally agree that commercial real estate will be affected, at least short term. However, if I were forced to work from home, I’d send an invoice for the space 
In actuality office space in my home is not available for rental, never mind for donation.
It’s a mixed experience on my side. The dev and product side of things has performed better than working from the office, sales a lot less (which to me means we need to think about their incentives). Many people are simply not set up to work from home though – don’t have the space, especially once kids come home from school. So if this picks up, the move to larger accommodation away from urban areas will be a push, not just a choice
denopa wrote:
So if this picks up, the move to larger accommodation away from urban areas will be a push, not just a choice
The cost of which could be passed on to employers in the form of demand for higher wages to cover generally larger mortgages being paid by employees. This would not necessarily please my employer since R&D in the minds of some in key management positions means “Rent and Depreciation” – owning the real estate where the employees sit has previously proved as profitable as doing the work.
I’m currently trying to hire a specialist engineer from a lower cost housing area, and he needs to make an additional $4000 per month (gross, added his current income, plus a raise) to cover increased housing cost. He’ll get it so it’s a real ‘thing’.
I’m not sure how moving to a lower housing costs area can increase a mortgage, unless only McMansions are available?
People do not move backwards in their own minds. In my area, when they move away from a high density area they want square feet both in the house and the surrounding plot of land. Zoning laws then make that the norm and the price of a larger house outside of the city, but within a reasonable distance, is high.
