These landlords don’t want us to go to work

The government, which banned tourists last month but kept schools, restaurants and bars open, has now shut down social gatherings and closed all businesses except essential services.That has taken a predictable toll on real estate.

SINGAPORE now has two types of landlords. The unhappy ones need folks to show up at offices, malls, hotels and factories, something that’s simply not going to happen in a hurry with the city-state’s coronavirus infections about to hit 6,000.

But there’s also a happy property owner, whose tenants live in the clouds, unaffected by social-distancing norms. For real-estate investment trusts, or REITs, that make money by hosting data, the more people pretend to work from home and watch Netflix, the better.