Our read is that a return-to-office push matters less for residential housing than the headlines suggest, and nobody can promise how any single trend plays out. Start with leverage. In a tight labor market, employers who mandate a full return watch people leave for roles that keep flexibility, so many quietly settle on hybrid to retain staff rather than fully reversing course. Seasoned workers who already know their jobs have the most room to push back; the group employers most want back in person is younger staff who benefit from in-office mentorship. That tug-of-war usually softens a blanket mandate into something in between. Next, who actually relocated. Most people who moved for remote work did so believing the arrangement was durable. So a mandate rarely produces a wave of forced sales: some people sell, some find a new local job instead of returning, and some employers concede remote work rather than eat the cost of replacing them. The bigger and more direct effect lands on commercial real estate, where empty office space is the immediate problem. Government policy is a narrower case. It reaches government employees rather than the private sector, so where it bites is regional, potentially shifting demand between a metro's suburbs and its urban core rather than moving national prices. The durable move is to watch whether the trend actually sticks in your specific area before acting on a single announcement.