Working from home 2-3 days a week is not what I would consider "remote work," since you'd still need to live close to the office.

From my perspective, this is worst of all possible scenarios. Employees are still shackled to an expensive city, but now they must pay for housing that supports a dedicated "home office" space (e.g., a larger apartment with an extra room, or carving out part of their living room/bedroom). This is just shifting the cost burden of real estate from the company onto the employees.