Where would you live (if you didn't have to go into the office)? Now that companies are going remote, will their employees move?

• Author: Griffin, Elle

Rebecca Zimmerman recently decided to move to Hawaii. She'd been working as an account coordinator for Double Forte, a creative agency out of San Francisco, when stay-at-home orders forced the company's six office spaces to close. One month into closures Double Forte decided to allow it's employees to work remotely indefinitely.

Zimmerman jumped at the opportunity. "I began thinking of places I could relocate to that would support my lifestyle," she says. "That's when I started considering Hawaii. It's part of the US, making travel and relocation easier, only has a slight time zone difference and, not to mention, has a climate that I love."

Her company was supportive, offering their now freed up funds to employees as a stipend for whatever office equipment they might need. "Knowing me well, my manager and other directors were so excited for me," Zimmerman says. "They knew Hawaii could be a place where I would thrive, not only personally but professionally."

PEOPLE ARE MOVING

In San Francisco, where Facebook and Twitter first proclaimed their employees would be able to work remotely indefinitely, there has been something of an exodus. Slack, Square, and Uber soon followed in their footsteps with many employees claiming they would move out of the city as a result.

What happened immediately after was not surprising: Vacancy rates in San Francisco and New York rose to new heights, real estate listings in both areas increased, rent prices decreased, and suburbs grew in population density and real estate prices. There's even an aptly named Instagram account called @empty_sf.

Though the exodus is hardly as dire as media outlets have painted it to be--vacancy rates in San Francisco are currently 10 percent, compared with 5.4 percent last year--it's understandable why so many have left: Those cities were too expensive to live in to begin with. The companies that operated there had to pay a premium to have office space there and employees paid a premium so they could afford to live there.

Not only that, but employees had to commute from long distances over long periods of time to get to work, dropping their kids off at expensive childcare centers along the way in order to do so. And the wealth required of such an existence excluded large populations of people from being able to join, bringing challenges of diversity and equality.

All that sheer hemorrhaging of wasted time, money, and talent created something of a bubble where apps were created to...