Remote work rose like a tide. It surged in 2020, carrying whole companies to kitchen tables and spare bedrooms, washing away commutes and cubicles overnight. But tides, by definition, recede. And as the water pulls back, it reveals a shoreline reshaped–one that has altered how we live, how we work, and how we value real estate in Fairfield County.
For a moment, the idea of “WFH forever” seemed unshakable. Companies shrank their footprints, tenants walked away from office towers, and Metro-North ridership dropped to a trickle. Families who might once have hovered at the county line ventured to northern Fairfield County, to Litchfield County, and beyond, betting on a life unbound by the daily train. Greenwich felt it too: the allure of larger lots, fresh air, and home offices with proper doors drawing reluctant suburbanites in droves.
Yet just a few years later, the story reads differently. Recent data on New York City’s office market shows that many major employers are mandating in-office returns, fueling a steady rebound in office demand across the city. Gallup confirms the trend: the majority of remote-capable workers are not fully remote at all; they are hybrid, splitting time between home and office. The era of total virtual freedom seems to be a chapter for most, not the book.
The sea change is clear on our own Metro-North tracks. By late 2024, weekday ridership was back to more than 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels, and weekends were even stronger. Fares may be up, but the trains are filling. Stamford’s station, long a bellwether for the county, feels busy again on Monday mornings. When the Manhattan offices call, proximity matters. And suddenly, Fairfield towns further up the line look less convenient than Greenwich, Riverside, Cos Cob, and Old Greenwich, where a New York desk is still reachable in under an hour.
The commercial market tells its own story. Stamford saw millions of square feet vacated during the pandemic, yet absorption has quietly turned positive. It is the classic flight to quality. Companies may not want more space, but they are willing to pay for better space, and Greenwich, with its boutique offices and proximity to clients, has been a net beneficiary. Many Wall Street firms have quietly opened satellite offices in A+ Greenwich buildings as a compromise between WFH and “in office,” that their most valuable employees deem acceptable.
Even flexible workspace has rebounded. IWG, parent company of Regus, reported record network growth in 2024 and added hundreds of centers this year, including in Stamford and Greenwich. Their message is simple: hybrid is here to stay, and people want a professional option near home. A well-designed coworking space is now a fixture of the suburban landscape, not a novelty.
What does all of this mean for Fairfield County homeowners? It means the “commute calculus” is back, but with a twist. Buyers still want a proper home office, perhaps even two. They still value a strong Wi-Fi backbone, sound insulation, and flexible rooms that can swing between work and family. But they also prize proximity to stations, highways, and Class A office clusters in Stamford and Greenwich. In other words, the homes that will hold value are those that can support both sides of the hybrid life: privacy to WFH when you need it and access to Manhattan when face-to-face is the order of the day.
The rise and fall of remote work is not an ending but a recalibration. We are not going back to 2019, and we are not stuck in 2020. We are somewhere in between, navigating a new rhythm that values both presence and place. And in real estate, as in life, the homes that thrive will be the ones designed to move gracefully with the tide.
