Ingrid Nappi, economist and professor of management at ESSEC Business School, proposes a diagnosis of changes in the real estate market and the use of offices following the first waves of covid, in June 2021. While the health crisis has led to a sharp rise in remote working, the results of the “My post-confinement office” survey, included in the work of the ESSEC Workplace Management Chair, show that office users continue to prefer low-density, dedicated spaces. A majority of them rejected the idea of only working from home. However, according to Ingrid Nappi, the opposite trend could coexist on the office real estate market in the future. While it is possible that the average surface area rented will decrease, a proportion of players will continue to favour hypercentrality, leading to a growth in the demand for offices in the central business districts of Paris. At the same time, other players could move to peripheral areas, and towards workspaces closer to employees’ homes.
In a case study on real estate in the banking and insurance sector, Ingrid Nappi also mentions, a significant drop in the number of branches in the Parisian Metropolis. This trend, which began before the crisis, is less pronounced than in other European countries, but nevertheless it raises the question of the reassignment of some of these branches, which are often found in attractive streets.
This document is a contribution to the Observatory of the Parisian Economy’s Forecasting Lab.
The Observatory, which is run by Apur in partnership with the City of Paris’ Department of Attractiveness and Employment (DAE), is dedicated to analysing specific aspects of the Parisian economy and assessing the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on companies, employment, job demand and the effects of support measures. This process takes into consideration the monitoring and analysis of data on the current economic situation (Part 1) and carries out in-depth thematic studies in conjunction with the Observatory’s partners (Part 2). The Observatory also aims to develop forward-looking thinking to support the recovery, to anticipate changes in the economy and to imagine forward-looking developments for the future. In this spirit, the economic forecasting lab (Part 3) is based on the contributions of researchers and experts.
It is in the context of this third part that a first series of contributions has been established around three main themes: the financial structure of a city over a 20 year time horizon, new, strategic economic sectors and the fight against inequality as a factor of development in territories. This contribution is included under the second theme. Ingrid Nappi is an economist and has been a lecturer of management at the ESSEC Business School since 1995, where she holds the Real Estate and Sustainable Development Chair and the Workplace Management Chair, which focuses on company workspaces. She is also President of ERES (European Real Estate Society) and Expert Member of the State Real Estate Council - Conseil immobilier de l’État. She has published many works on offices, including “ Office Revolution - Révolutions de bureaux (Éditions PC, 2019). In addition, she has led a study on the changes in office real estate generated by the health crisis called “ My Post-lockdown Office— Mon bureau post-confinement -“ which identifies the transformations underway and the desires of those who use offices. She runs the educational blog: www.ingridnappi.com.
Presentation of the intervention :
Webconference of December 16, 2021 :