Done Working From Home? Prepare for More Hot Desks
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    HOUSE MEDIAN ASKING PRICES AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $1,666,984 (-0.52%)       Melbourne $1,025,140 (-0.29%)       Brisbane $1,079,790 (+0.21%)       Adelaide $987,421 (+0.48%)       Perth $959,727 (+1.13%)       Hobart $774,699 (-0.85%)       Darwin $821,142 (+4.72%)       Canberra $946,671 (-0.99%)       National $1,096,933 (+0.01%)                UNIT MEDIAN ASKING PRICES AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $779,804 (-0.05%)       Melbourne $501,457 (-0.97%)       Brisbane $680,117 (+0.71%)       Adelaide $516,640 (-0.17%)       Perth $539,067 (+1.01%)       Hobart $528,172 (+0.12%)       Darwin $391,098 (+0.26%)       Canberra $495,303 (+3.15%)       National $576,956 (+0.40%)                HOUSES FOR SALE AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 12,076 (-85)       Melbourne 14,218 (-287)       Brisbane 8,085 (-106)       Adelaide 2,943 (+40)       Perth 7,410 (-63)       Hobart 1,202 (-4)       Darwin 165 (-4)       Canberra 1,087 (-18)       National 47,186 (-527)                UNITS FOR SALE AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 9,230 (-171)       Melbourne 7,611 (-611)       Brisbane 1,520 (-30)       Adelaide 404 (-17)       Hobart 212 (+1)       Hobart 215 (-13)       Darwin 287 (+2)       Canberra 1,186 (-1,198)       National 22,003 (-2,039)                HOUSE MEDIAN ASKING RENTS AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $800 ($0)       Melbourne $595 ($0)       Brisbane $650 ($0)       Adelaide $640 (+$10)       Perth $700 ($0)       Hobart $583 (+$3)       Darwin $720 (-$30)       Canberra $710 ($0)       National $681 (-$3)                UNIT MEDIAN ASKING RENTS AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $750 ($0)       Melbourne $590 ($0)       Brisbane $650 (+$10)       Adelaide $550 (+$15)       Perth $665 (+$15)       Hobart $500 (+$18)       Darwin $550 (+$35)       Canberra $590 (+$5)       National $615 (+$10)                HOUSES FOR RENT AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 5,732 (-16)       Melbourne 7,664 (+4)       Brisbane 3,892 (-6)       Adelaide 1,458 (-8)       Perth 2,305 (-13)       Hobart 236 (+7)       Darwin 76 (-1)       Canberra 465 (+5)       National 21,828 (-28)                UNITS FOR RENT AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 7,852 (-14)       Melbourne 5,484 (0)       Brisbane 1,900 (+20)       Adelaide 413 (-1)       Perth 778 (+6)       Hobart 90 (-8)       Darwin 86 (+7)       Canberra 544 (-22)       National 17,147 (-12)                HOUSE ANNUAL GROSS YIELDS AND TREND       Sydney 2.50% (↑)      Melbourne 3.02% (↑)        Brisbane 3.13% (↓)     Adelaide 3.37% (↑)        Perth 3.79% (↓)     Hobart 3.91% (↑)        Darwin 4.56% (↓)     Canberra 3.90% (↑)        National 3.23% (↓)            UNIT ANNUAL GROSS YIELDS AND TREND       Sydney 5.00% (↑)      Melbourne 6.12% (↑)      Brisbane 4.97% (↑)      Adelaide 5.54% (↑)      Perth 6.41% (↑)      Hobart 4.92% (↑)      Darwin 7.31% (↑)        Canberra 6.19% (↓)     National 5.54% (↑)             HOUSE RENTAL VACANCY RATES AND TREND       Sydney 2.0% (↑)      Melbourne 1.9% (↑)      Brisbane 1.4% (↑)      Adelaide 1.3% (↑)      Perth 1.2% (↑)      Hobart 1.0% (↑)      Darwin 1.6% (↑)      Canberra 2.7% (↑)      National 1.7% (↑)             UNIT RENTAL VACANCY RATES AND TREND       Sydney 2.4% (↑)      Melbourne 3.8% (↑)      Brisbane 2.0% (↑)      Adelaide 1.1% (↑)      Perth 0.9% (↑)      Hobart 1.4% (↑)      Darwin 2.8% (↑)      Canberra 2.9% (↑)      National 2.2% (↑)             AVERAGE DAYS TO SELL HOUSES AND TREND       Sydney 33.9 (↑)        Melbourne 32.6 (↓)     Brisbane 35.9 (↑)      Adelaide 30.2 (↑)      Perth 41.5 (↑)      Hobart 37.1 (↑)        Darwin 23.7 (↓)     Canberra 35.3 (↑)      National 33.8 (↑)             AVERAGE DAYS TO SELL UNITS AND TREND       Sydney 32.6 (↑)      Melbourne 32.8 (↑)        Brisbane 31.9 (↓)     Adelaide 29.3 (↑)      Perth 41.0 (↑)      Hobart 37.4 (↑)        Darwin 41.2 (↓)     Canberra 42.9 (↑)      National 36.1 (↑)            
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Done Working From Home? Prepare for More Hot Desks

As employees return to the office, more of them will find that they no longer have an assigned workspace that’s all theirs.

By KRITHIKA VARAGUR
Wed, Jun 16, 2021 12:03pmGrey Clock 4 min

Sarah Vanunu started a new job three weeks ago at MyHeritage, an online genealogy platform based in Or Yehuda, Israel, and thanks to Israel’s speedy vaccine rollout, she has been eligible for in-person work since she began. But she only goes in on Mondays and Wednesdays and leaves nothing on her assigned desk in between, since different people work there the other days of the week.

“It’s so funny to start a new job and not meet everyone up front,” she says. “I still don’t know half of my colleagues.”

MyHeritage, which employs about 400 people in Israel, is still operating at reduced capacity due to Covid restrictions. Ms. Vanunu, who directs the company’s public relations, comes to work with just a laptop and mouse. There’s a completely clean desk waiting for her there, with nothing on it but a monitor. If she wants to come in any other days, she must make a reservation online and get assigned to a random desk elsewhere.

As millions of workers head back to the office this summer, many will return without a desk of their own. Some appreciate the flexibility of these hot-desk arrangements, which aren’t completely new but have become vastly more popular as part of post-pandemic plans for hybrid work.

But hot desks also mean extra time spent managing reservations, coordinating with teams and helping employees feel a sense of belonging without a dedicated spot for them in the office. Experts and workers say there are ways to optimize these spaces, including assigning desks to groups instead of individuals, planning schedules, designating areas for socializing and being extra-mindful of workers with special needs or disabilities.

A major reason desk reservations are a big part of so many companies’ return to work is that most workers haven’t yet been ordered to come in five days a week, so their schedules remain variable. And many offices are reopening at lower than maximum capacity. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon wrote in his annual shareholder letter in April that the bank may need only 60 seats for every 100 employees after the pandemic.

“You have to have most employees coming in nearly every day to justify assigning them a desk,” says Amy Yin, San Francisco-based founder of OfficeTogether, an office reservation and scheduling software company.

Some companies also want to avoid assigning desks so they can clean them more frequently as part of enhanced pandemic-era hygiene protocols.

The key concept emerging around desk-reservation systems is “neighbourhoods,” where certain teams can gather a few days a week, as opposed to individual workers reserving their own desks and coming in willy-nilly.

MyHeritage, which opened for in-person work in April, designated one or two specific weekdays for each team, such as research and development or product, says the company’s facilities manager, Katerina Breitman.

The most popular day for in-person work at the moment is Thursday, according to data compiled in May from about 10,000 offices around the world by Robin, a workplace management platform. (The least popular is Friday.)

Flexible work arrangements are likely here to stay: In one 2020 survey of 77 firms worldwide by CBRE Research, 56% of those surveyed anticipated more use of flexible office space.

Social interaction may be one of the trickiest parts of these arrangements in the long run, since workers can no longer drop by the permanent desk of a colleague for unplanned chitchat. A 2018 survey by Workthere, a co-working space company, found that only 46% of workers surveyed felt that they were more productive in a hot-desk environment compared with having their own desk.

One workaround is to designate areas just for socializing. The Austin, Texas, office of the consulting firm Bain & Co., which reopened in May in a WeWork, has a “bullpen” area, an open space with larger tables that can seat about 25 people, to facilitate water-cooler moments, says Peter Bowen, a partner there.

Live feeds can also help workers keep track of each other, says Zach Dunn, Boston-based co-founder of Robin. “At the beginning of the year, [our software] basically showed desks and seat assignments, but now it’s a map updated in real-time as people move through the office.”

Over time, companies have gotten better at the extra layer of planning required to work in an office that accommodates fewer people in more locales. In Austin, Bain asks employees to indicate on a mobile app which days they plan to come in the following week. If many people plan to come on a particular day, they might allot the morning to a certain team and the afternoon to a different one.

OfficeTogether allows booking up to 30 days in advance, but Ms. Yin says most companies tend to book about two weeks out.

Workers with disabilities, as well as workers who are used to having specific accommodations at their workstations, may find it harder to adjust to hot-desking.

It’s important to design such offices so that they are accessible from the outset, says Deborah Foster, a professor at Cardiff Business School in Wales who studies diversity in the workplace. “Ensuring that the layout is wheelchair-accessible and putting sensory markers on floors to guide people with sight impairments are two considerations,” she says. Also important: proper lighting and ensuring that there are quiet spaces for workers who need to use assistive technologies like voice-recognition software.

For workers who can’t be accommodated in the short-term, employers should be more flexible about allowing them to continue working from home, Dr. Foster says.

One final thing that workers may miss with hot desks is the chance to spruce up their workspaces with personal memorabilia.

Mr. Bowen, at Bain, used to keep all kinds of tchotchkes at his old desk in Chicago: photos, a binder of 20 years’ worth of company presentations, a trophy from his company golf tournament. He will eventually go back there to retrieve his mementos, but no longer feels he needs to have them at his desk for colleagues to see. Instead, he’ll just store them at his new home in Texas.

“The rise of the home office has kind of created a second place for all that stuff,” he says.

Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: June 12, 2021



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By Helen Baker
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Superannuation is the first thought when it comes to self-funding retirement. Yet it is hardly the only option for doing so.

Just as we have a choice in how and where we work to earn a living, many people also have a choice in how to fund their retirement.

It is possible and sometimes preferable to leave your superannuation untouched, allowing it to continue growing. Some or all of your income can come from alternative sources instead.

Here are some alternatives you can consider.

1. Downsize your home

For many who own their own homes, the equity accrued over decades can eclipse the funds in superannuation. However, it’s theoretical money only until it is unlocked.

Selling up the family home and downsizing – or rightsizing – for retirement allows you to pocket those gains tax-free and simultaneously relocate to a more suitable home with lower upkeep costs.

Up to $300,000 from the proceeds can be contributed by a downsizer to boost your super, and the remainder can be used to fund living expenses or actively invested.

Remember that while the sale proceeds of your home are tax-free, any future profits or interest earned from that money will be taxable.

2. Part-time work

Semi-retirement allows you to gradually step into retirement. You continue earning income and super while working part-time, keeping a foot in the workforce while testing the waters of your new found free time.

Doing so also offers scope to move into different roles, such as passing on your skills to future generations by teaching/training others in your field of expertise, or taking employment in a new area that interests you and is closer to home.

3. Self-employment

Retirement from a full-time position presents a good opportunity to pursue self-employment. With more time and fewer commitments on your hands, you have greater scope to turn your hobby into a business or leverage your professional skills and reputation as an external consultant.

Also, for the self-employed and those with a family business, director’s loan repayments from the company are typically tax-free, offering a potentially lucrative source of

income and a means of extracting previous investments into the business without selling your ownership stake.

Helen Baker

4. Investments

Rental property income (from residential or commercial properties) can supplement or even provide a generous source of income. The same applies to dividends from shares.

These are likely to be more profitable if you own them well before retirement.

Income that is surplus to your everyday needs can be reinvested using tax-effective strategies to grow your future returns.

5. Family trust

A family trust could be used to house investments for yourself and other relatives, building intergenerational wealth.

Trusts allow funds to be allocated to beneficiaries to manage marginal tax rates and stretch the money further, you have control over how income is split between different family members and have flexibility for changing circumstances.

6. Selling collectables

You may not realise the value of items you have collected over the years, such as wine, artwork, jewellery, vintage cars, and antiques.

Rather than have them collect dust or pay to store them, they could be sold to fund your living costs or new investments.

Where possible, avoid selling growth assets in a depressed market – wait until you can extract maximum value.

7. Obtaining a part-pension

Part-pensions are not only possible but valuable in making your superannuation stretch further. They still entitle you to a concession card with benefits in healthcare, transport, and more.

Take these savings even further by requesting pensioner discounts with other companies, on everything from utilities to travel and insurance to eating out.

Also, don’t overestimate the value of your assets as part of the means test. It’s a common mistake that can wrongly deny you a full or part-pension.

Plan ahead

However, you ultimately fund your retirement, planning is crucial. Advice would hopefully pay for itself.

Understand your spending and how those habits will change before and during retirement, then look to investments that offer the best fit.

Consider a mixture of strategies to diversify your risk, manage your tax liabilities and ensure ongoing income.

Above all, timing is key. The further ahead you plan, the more time you have to embrace additional opportunities and do things at the right time to maximise their value. You’ve worked hard and now is your chance to enjoy the fruits of your labour!

Helen Baker is a licensed Australian financial adviser and author of the new book, Money For Life: How to build financial security from firm foundations (Major Street Publishing $32.99). Find out more at www.onyourowntwofeet.com.au 

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