My guess, people are moving away from the cities out to the suburbs because the great thing about the cities are all the social events, restaurants, and activities which are mostly shutdown and a lot of people don't need commute to work since they work remote now. So might as well move out from an apartment into a bigger house. Then there might also be a fear of higher crime, taxes, etc
This theory doesn't make a lot of sense to me, I've heard it a few times though. Why would someone buy a house away from the city during a temporary pandemic shutdown, assuming when things eventually open up again more in say max a year or two, they will need/want to be back in the city? I mean permanent remote work is one thing, I guess, but everything else that has 'gone away' hopefully will not be that way permanently (?)
> assuming when things eventually open up again more in say max a year or two, they will need/want to be back in the city?
Well, I do not have a huge sample to drive any conclusions.
But I know a couple whose adult children live in other parts of the world (one in Miami, the other in London).
So the couple is choosing, finally, to sell their NY city home and move to south east Florida closer to one of the children.
Largerly, besides emotional reasons (lack of feeling secure, feeling of being unwanted, feeling of being robbed by local taxes, wanting to be closer to their children) -- they no longer see that their home price will continue to go up to justify sitting there as an 'investment vehicle'.
They are closer to retirement age, so their needs, perhaps are different then others.
They also do not want their children, under any circumstance to move back to NY city or NJ.
Not sure that I buy the theory either at the macro level, but I think one thing I have personally seen/heard of is people who are now realizing how much they don't like the city life (even when things are open) and the pandemic is the straw to break the camel's back here and convince them to go elsewhere to try something else. The key is that it's not temporary for them.
Even the people that are there for work and already knew their city reality may also be realizing their gained happiness out of the city is worth more than the financial boost of their job in the city.
People buy gas guzzlers because they want them and the dip in gas prices makes the TCO calculation something they can convince the other decision-maker in their household is a battle that's not worth picking.
Where you live is a compromise. With the city benifet gone but not the suburban ones the suburbs look attractive to people who are on the fence anyway.
I'll be very surprised if things get much better anytime soon, certainly not before the end of the year. Maybe two years from now... but I wouldn't bet on it. I live in a city where some questionable calls were made with regard to rioters, so I'm eager to put some distance between that and myself.
I think the argument is that it's displaced consumption, where people who would normally have waited for the perfect time to pull the trigger are now all moving at once.
