EDITOR’S COMMENT It’s amazing what just a few chinks of light in what has been a very dark and rather long tunnel can do.
First came the news that there would be a new president – and, significantly, the first female vice president, a first female of colour vice president – of the United States. A new president who at least appears to think before he speaks, and certainly before he tweets. A president who, regardless of your political leaning, feels more professional and less erratic than the current one. He won’t be perfect, obviously. But so few of us are.
Then came some hopeful vaccine news. Early news, but hopeful nonetheless. The stock markets immediately bounced back, with global markets closing at an all-time high on Monday. They were already benefiting from the Biden Bounce, with investors welcoming the prospect of more unified politics, less tense global trade relations and a new response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the world’s largest economy.
Real estate stocks surged too. British Land, Landsec and Hammerson all bounced. Premier Inn owner Whitbread, cinema operator Cineworld and Wagamama owner The Restaurant Group also soared.
Hurrah! A cure, we all collectively thought. The office is not dead. Travel, holidays and eating out are not to be confined to the history books. Hurrah! We no longer have to rely on Just Eat (a faller) to get that eating out experience at home, and perhaps the entire high street won’t be transferred to distribution units (listed real estate’s darling of the past few months, SEGRO, fell for several days in a row).
This reaction filled me with joy, and a touch of sadness. Joy because it showed how quickly people and the sector can (and will) recover. And sadness because it showcases the very real possibility that we will very quickly revert to normal.
No! I hear you mutter. She’s wrong. We’ve learnt all about the need to be flexible, that we need to treat our office space, how and where our employees work, and the way we design and build towns, cities and homes differently. The new normal, as former chancellor Philip Hammond says in EG this week, is going to be entirely different to the old normal.
Is it though? Sure, offices will probably be largely empty on Fridays in the new normal. But weren’t they anyway? We all had that extra-long breakfast or lunch on a Friday. Or, to give away an EG state secret, the famed “4pm meeting with Knight Frank”, which for decades (almost centuries in EG’s case) has been code for “I’m meeting a contact at the pub and I won’t be coming back to the office.” But will there really be widespread structural change to how we live, work and play? I’m not convinced. Not in the short term anyway.
This week has signalled to me that we will bounce back to the way we were before pretty quickly. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a great thing for many a real estate owner. And even though some industrial and online businesses fell initially on the vaccine news, they won’t suffer long-term. Digitisation of our shopping habits will continue. Retail was already undergoing structural change.
For offices, I’m sure change will come too, but not immediately. The proliferation of long leases across commercial space will see to that.
But regardless of whether we bounce back with lessons learnt or just revert to normal, the message we all have to sit happily with this week is that we will bounce back.
2020, you have not broken us. This fight isn’t over and we can – and I’d wager will – definitely end this year with a win.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
