- Return-to-office mandates and potential layoffs are upending housing markets as employees deal with job insecurity and commute times.
The Trump administration's return-to-office mandate and layoffs are disrupting housing markets with big federal footprints, as workers search for closer commutes and struggle with job insecurity.
Trump has said that if federal employees opt to stay remote, they will be dismissed. In addition, Elon Musk’s DOGE is targeting agencies for steep budget and personnel cuts.
“Since the inauguration, I’ve met with a few people including one federal government employee, who are selling specifically because of anticipated return-to-office orders,” said Kansas City, Mo.-based Redfin agent Jo Chavez, in a Redfin report.
Chavez spoke to a client who had plans to upgrade to a larger home, “but he canceled those plans because he’s worried about losing his job due to restructuring of government jobs.”
Washington, D.C.-based Redfin agent Stuart Naranch said a couple he worked with to buy their dream home a few years ago are now thinking about putting their home up for sale as they seek to be closer to public transportation.
“They both work for the government and want a more convenient commute because they’ll need to return to in-person work soon,” Naranch said in that same report.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has already laid off more than 1,000 employees, while termination emails have been sent from the Department of Education, the Small Business Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the General Services Administration, Reuters reported.
The federal government isn’t the only organization implementing return-to-work mandates. Corporate giants like Amazon, Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Dell are also bringing their employees back to the office.
That has sparked widespread pushback from workers, and 1,200 JPMorgan employees signed a petition against the company’s five-day-a-week, in-office mandate.
“Don’t waste time on it,” CEO Jamie Dimon said during a company-wide meeting this week, Reuters reported. “I don’t care how many people sign that f—ing petition.”
The chaos caused by the RTO mandates and the federal layoffs adds to the strain in the US housing market, which has already been frozen by high mortgages rates.
High borrowing costs and home prices have kept demand from would-be buyers low. And while more sellers are putting their homes on the market, buyers are still on the sidelines.
For the four weeks that ended Feb. 9, new listings were up 7.4% from last year, the highest level since 2022, while pending sales were down 6%, according to Redfin.
There are now five months of supply on the market, the most since early 2019 and up from 4.4 months a year earlier. And the typical home took 57 days to go under contract, the longest span since the early days of the pandemic in March 2020. But demand could pick up soon as agents have seen more house hunters.
"Buyers have been sidelined this year because of high mortgage rates and uncertainty surrounding politics and the economy, but some are starting to come off the fence," said Fernanda Kriese, a Redfin agent in Las Vegas, according to the report.
