That's not what I believe. Other posters have explained it well, but to respond myself:

1. Some large tech companies are also large real estate funds. Google had >100B$ in real estate positions (although mixed between datacenters and office parks) [0]. So its not that they are milked for rent, but more that they would be loosing some money here, although not much. 2. People making decisions are also probably invested in the real estate market, and therefore have money to loose from a collapse of real estate value.

I also gave more thought to it, and I don't see it as impossible that WFH reduces employee's productivity (from the perspective of the employer). However, that is also true of other worker's rights like vacation time or sick leave. RTO mandates are an act of control of workers, from the managing class, and pushing it as "because of productivity" does not change that.

And again: I personally like working more from an office. I don't want to force others to follow my preferences.

[0] https://www.realtygroupfl.com/blog/posts/2022/02/02/google-r...