One of the enduring narratives of the pandemic is that Americans are ditching cities and embracing the suburbs. But a new study from Zillow claims we might be driving up the wrong cul de sac.
The real estate company found that generally speaking, suburban housing markets have not strengthened relative to urban markets during the pandemic.
- “Both region types
appear to be hot sellers’ markets right now—while many suburban areas
have seen strong improvement in housing activity in recent months, so,
too, have many urban areas,” Zillow says.
- While for-sale suburban
homes attract more than 3x the traffic on Zillow right now than urban
listings, that’s no different than last year.
The outliers
New York
City and San Francisco. These hubs of innovation and $14 Bud Lights may
actually be facing a significant housing downturn.
- Per StreetEasy, Manhattan home values dropped 4.2% since last year and homes are staying on the market over two months longer.
- San Francisco list prices are also down 4.9% annually, while inventory is up 96%.
Why those two? NYC
and San Francisco were the most expensive housing markets in the
country before the pandemic. Life under lockdown may have given people
the nudge they’d been considering for years.
And where
are they going? “Basically point a finger on a map, people are moving
there...they’re going back to their roots,” one moving company exec told the NYT.
Big picture
Summer is typically the busiest time to move, but this year has been especially crazy for the residential real estate industry.
When it’s not penning reports, Zillow’s day job is to run an online real estate marketplace, and it’s going really well—on Thursday, Zillow recorded its highest daily active user count ever, per Apptopia.
Looking ahead...the
Brew is proud to announce our Broadway Gauge, the best economic proxy
this side of the Waffle House Index. It posits this—when Broadway
returns, so will New York home values. Do you agree?
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