The Brazilian real estate market has suffered serious instabilities since the first semester of 2020. The need for a quarantine of nearly 4 months in Brazil’s big cities caused a sharp fall in the demand for new rentals, as well as affecting the revenues of companies and offices in already rented spaces.
At moments like these, people have a tendency to become desperate. It’s a natural reaction to a potential danger. However, it is important to be rational when making managerial decisions in a crisis such as this one. Property rental, for instance, is a sensitive point in this matter.
Managers must ask themselves if this isn’t the ideal moment to make structural changes in their workspace. Firstly, thinking of reducing the physical operation itself. In many cases, it’s necessary to do so in order to stabilize internal accounts and adapt to a new reality. In many cases, it’s not necessary to make a complete change of location, but to deallocate certain areas, placing departments in a home office model.
This also offers an opportunity to renegotiate contracts and rental agreements of rooms and offices. For locators, it may be better to keep the property rented than to leave it empty, without generating any revenue. The current low demand of new tenants facilitates renegotiation in this sense.
In other cases, the complete move of the office may be an interesting option. In the case of companies whose operation is difficult to decentralize, the search for cheaper new locations may save money in the end. It’s the ideal moment to negotiate special rental conditions.
Lastly, adopting a remote work model may be a great solution at this moment. Much more than sending collaborators home, it’s structuring a new operational philosophy based on digital work, and that offers collaborators more comfort and more free time. This is a strong future tendency, which will make company structures lighter by remodelling the way in which we see the corporate market.
