If you can work remotely, would you reconsider where you live?

whiskeyman

Many of us lucky enough to still have jobs may be working from home and may be doing so for the foreseeable.
Many companies are looking to embrace this new way of working with Twitter making the news last week saying staff could work from home for ever if they wished.

For those who rent, would you rent elswhere perhaps cheaper or in a better location?

If you are considering buying, will this now change where you consider as location?

Some views are that many will up sticks and look for a better quality of life in the country, but others say people will still want to be near family, friends and other facilities.

I'm lucky to live somewhere I love, and next move would be to try save for an attic conversion for my new office. If I hadn't bought here, I'd probably consider a bigger house more further out from the city though.

The_Brood

The problem is no one knows right now what companies/agencies will decide. No one is yet writing hard rules about how much remote work will be allowed or not. There is a general sense that working remotely will be much more in flavor, yes, but will that mean 4 days in the office 1 day from home? If so, that's not gonna change commuting strains that much. Will it be 2-3 days from home the rest in the office? That's better, but if someone decided to move far away from work, are they ok with a massive draining commute for 2-3 days in exchange for working from home for the other days?

If it's only one day per week in the office....then yeah that opens up much of the country for where people can live. But will employers commit to that? The worse will be if they drag on deciding, you buy somewhere far, and one day they say nope, you need to be in office 4-5 days per week - what in the world do people then?

In any case it's gonna be very important that employers decide on very clear, permanent policies that they can't walk back on.

Padre_Pio

I would probably go to Killarney. Fantastic part of Ireland/ the world. Easy commute to Cork 1 or 2 days a week.

randomname2005

I don't know if it is that easy for many people. Assuming school returns with some semblance of normality are people going to look for new schools, and take kids away from friends? Or family members that live nearby?

bigar

I would move in a heartbeat. I would even consider moving abroad. Easy decision but then I am single so no one else to consider.

fattymuatty

Absolutely. We are looking to buy in the next few years and it is something we have discussed recently. I am self employed and work from home fulltime anyway and my husband has been working from home since the beginning of this covid thing. We wanted to move to the country anyway but if he wasn't tied to somewhere commutable it would give far more choice.

I think it is pie in the sky though as even though he is able to do his job 100% from home his boss is pretty keen to get them all sitting back into the office asap.

Ubbquittious

If I could work remotely 100% of the time I'd move to a Pacific island or some other place far from the maddening crowd. Otherwise I'd stay put.