Pluto Disruption Scenario: Real Estate

Structures that serve the few while disregarding the many would tend to decay…

Saturn and Neptune called, so I picked up and dialed into the exquisitely simple scenario for massive change that I share here. It has been fascinating (and horrifying) to watch Pluto at work. The best way I can describe it, the word that comes, is “decay.” Pluto eats away, very subtly like termites, at structures that no longer serve people, structures that are “too big to fail,” so they last too long. Suddenly, they crash to the ground one day, to everyone’s surprise. Except that the signs had been there for a long time, whispering and wafting in the night. This is where we are today.

USA Pluto Return in Context

As I detailed in Behind the Scenes of Crisis and The USA’s Pluto Return 2022, Pluto is USA’s rising planet and has a strong position in the country’s natal chart. Last year, USA had its first Pluto return when Pluto returned to the position it held when the country was “born.” As with all planetary returns, it symbolized the simultaneous end of the old cycle and the beginning of the new. By interpreting it, we can discern what the next cycle will look like.

Moreover, since USA began as a country at the dawn of the Industrial Economy and served as its poster child, I think this Pluto return affects other industrial (“rich”) economies in the many of the same ways. This is a global phenomenon.

Since Pluto sits at 27°33 Capricorn in USA’s natal chart, its action focuses on social structures and organizations. For context, during the Agrarian Economy, we had social systems like feudalism, which was grounded in land since land was how humans scaled food, and therefore population, power, and wealth. Today, “consumer” economies are manifestations of product-oriented industrial economies. The structures that Pluto would target depends on one’s point of view. If we consider that the universe exists and is inter-connected, structures that serve the few while disregarding the many would tend to decay. I imagine that many such structures are easily imaginable to you.

Disruption Scenario in Commercial Real Estate

The driver underneath is the massive investment they have in their buildings and properties…

I have long been a student of economic cycles because they serve to release pressure in “economies,” which are co-created social organizations (markets). And I have witnessed multiple economic shocks since the 1970s that reflected pressure, but government and business leaders have managed to act to prevent economic calamity, thereby preserving the status quo. I say this because pressure to redistribute wealth has been building for a long time.

Since 2020, we have been living through what is now simply known as “the pandemic” or, more prosaically as “covid.” We all experienced profound change on some level, mostly because, in addition to mass questioning of survival, it shook us out of one of the cornerstones of the Industrial Economy, the constructs of “home” and “work.” Think about this for a minute: before factories, we were on the farm, or before that, in hunter gatherer clans following our food supplies. When I studied in European history, I learned that the industrial economy’s requirement to move to the place of work disrupted society to the core and was a key factor to the revolutions of 1848, anarchy, and related movements.

Now we are “unwinding” work and home. Many of us are caught up in corporate calls to “return to office,” and few leaders are honest about why. The most common platitude they offer is, “We’re a people and innovation business. We need to collaborate, and face to face is the best way.” While this certainly has some truth in it, the driver underneath is the massive investment they have in their buildings and properties, which have been sitting empty or only partially full since covid.

So workers are being goaded, and downright ordered, to “return to office.” The problem is, the cat is out of the bag. Many of us have discovered that the freedom we’ve had while working from home enables us to roll our own “work–life balance.” There is much resistance to RTO, and I don’t think it will dissipate. What does this do?

I live in Chicago, where there are blocks upon blocks of office buildings, just like in other cities and towns. In this economy, the office is the shop floor. But if people en masse refuse to return to working in the office with its attendant commuting and costly insipid lunches, what will we do with all these buildings? Some of them are being repurposed as entertainment venues and residential buildings, but as many of us have discovered, location matters relatively little in the “Zoom age” of online meetings. Why go “there”downtown?” We may seek to entertain ourselves there once in a while, but those ticket prices will not maintain the current building and property values.

If a large portion of office workers refuse to return, at some point in the not too distant future, the value of these buildings and properties will crash, and I imagine that this will be too large for government and business leaders to contain. Especially because we have barely “recovered” from the last band-aid, QE. Banks are tottering because central banks (“The Fed” for USAers) have pursued their long-expected interest rate rises. And this is the proverbial child’s play.

The irony is, businesses are forcing people to return to real estate assets that are no longer needed as they were before. They don’t save money by forcing RTO; they simply utilize the asset as it was intended. The problem is, we have discovered collectively that we don’t like the office, so these buildings’ value is precarious. There will be no return to the way things were.

What Would Happen Then?

The redistribution of wealth was the key action during past depressions. And wealth affects politics profoundly.

I don’t pretend to know what would happen or how we would collectively react, but from an astrological perspective, I imagine that many of our current social constructs would have to be reimagined. I think we’ll see an economic “correction” along the lines of 1929, which was also a global phenomenon, and economies were less interconnected than they are today.

From Pluto’s perspective, corrupt structures are the target, structures that enrich the few and use the many. This also includes political structures. Of course, many companies will go bust, and political structures are likely to change outside of the norm. Wealth will be redistributed.

What to Do Right Now?

Since Pluto sits in USA’s 2nd house, values are likely to be profoundly affected…

If this makes sense to you, the main thing is to start living as if it is already happening. That means preparing for being disrupted. In such a situation, flexibility is key because no one knows exactly what will happen. But if we’re flexible, we can adapt most quickly to emerging conditions.

In general, increase your self-sufficiency (click that category here for concrete ideas), so you depend as little as possible on services, support programs, etc. Don’t depend on property; residential property is also likely to be disrupted. The issue is, how we value everything will change because most things depend on the constructs of work and home, a cornerstone of our social structures (the whole structure sits atop the cornerstone). Most locations of houses and buildings are related to work and home in some way. Since Pluto sits in USA’s 2nd house, values are likely to be profoundly affected. This also means the value of currency. Try to arrange yourself, so you don’t depend on savings that may lose value. Values of things are likely to change significantly, and many new things will emerge. That is the crux of the redistribution of wealth. Don’t own property or currency or stocks, anything that depends on the status quo because that will change. Don’t depend on savings or “retirement accounts” because most are based in the status quo in some way.

When? I’m afraid that, because time doesn’t really exist except for us incarnated beings, I must echo seismologists whose instruments measure, as do astrological instruments, forces. We don’t know exactly when things will pop. In this case, I imagine that we’ll have an experimental period of a few years before commercial real estate’s plunge in value will be obvious. Of course, other events can affect this, but Pluto has time. We don’t.

As for work, focus on doing things that help organizations change, especially way outside the norm. Align yourself with redesigning, rebuilding, and cleaning up messes, which will be everywhere. Help people to deal with crisis, adjusting on a massive scale. But the way that everything is currently financed is likely to be disrupted because financial arrangements are organizations, too, and they depend on current conditions.

As for specific preparations for disruption, see the Triple Conjunction posts one and two. There, the context was different, but they may help you start thinking creatively.