One of the analytic and data-driven insights into employees and office use over the last few years is that commute time is important to people.

A short commute isn't the most important thing to people. In 2023, a Fannie Mae and PSB Insights survey found that 36% of people said home affordability was an important consideration of where to work, while 22% would relocate or accept a longer commute from a job to find an affordable home.

But the pandemic made some things clear. The best incentive to bring people back to the office is shorter commutes, according to MCSI. Also, in April 2023, Moody's Analytics CRE analyzed the correlation between vacancy rate changes in metros and the percentage of workers who had less than a 15-minute commute. "There is plenty of 'noise' in the chart, but the general trend line does show that vacancy rates rose more in metros where it takes workers longer to get to work," they noted.