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Moving Parts: Pandemic Reshuffles Hot and Cold Housing Markets by Andrew King
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ike any major market disruption, the COVID-19 pandemic has created its share of winners and the less fortunate across the real estate economy. Generally, the residential sector has outperformed many other industries; however, a closer look at moving behaviors has found that not all buying and selling is steady across the nation.
According to realtor.com®’s Top Housing Markets of 2021 list, the hottest cities are the smaller population centers, including several state capitals like Sacramento, California, that have not yet seen the dramatic price increases of pre-pandemic cities such as San Francisco or Seattle. Gil Torres, broker/owner, Exclusive Realty & Mortgage, says he’s been seeing the demand grow throughout the pandemic as employers from the technology industry adapt to working from home and seek out more space around the suburban outskirts of 38 March 2021 RISMedia’s REAL ESTATE
Sacramento all the way up to Lake Tahoe. “The biggest influx has been from the Bay Area,” Torres says. “We are seeing a lot of Silicon Valley coming here—a lot of cash buyers. In the Bay Area, they’re not getting multiple offers any more, and listings are spending more days on the market.” The sudden market correction in and around San Francisco has been emblematic for some metropolitan centers, including Manhattan and Seattle. Torres says it’s been one of the few hurdles for his team lately as buyers aren’t getting their expected
windfalls from the sale of their Bay Area home. Still, with low interest rates, he says the market is expected to stay hot throughout the year. Jo Garner of Sierra Pacific Mortgage in Tennessee says she expects rates to remain low in the first quarter and start to inch up in the second quarter. However, there has been so much demand with people moving and refinancing that she doesn’t think the available rates will spike as a result. In the Memphis area, Garner says most of the buying activity is from people expanding their square footage to live with older family members while staying relatively close to their original neighborhoods. A recent study from the National Association of REALTORS® found that multigenerational home-buying went up once the pandemic hit the U.S. by 15% versus the 11% who purchased before April. The state has also had more than its share of new residents. According to a U-Haul study, Tennessee became the No. 1 state for rented one-way U-Haul orders last year, surpassing multi-year favorites Florida and Texas.
