What was thought to be a pandemic-driven scattering of people from cities to suburbs and from one state to another appears to be continuing even as the impact of the coronavirus begins to hopefully fade.
Home buyers continue to shop around for out-of-state homes, study says
Realtor.com’s “Cross-Market Demand” report shows that buyers are searching out-of-state more than last year. In addition, some surprising news about the appeal of cities: D.C. and New York City are among the 10 fastest-growing markets for home shoppers.
A higher share (40.5 percent) of viewers looking at listings on Realtor.com looked out-of-state during the first quarter of 2022 compared with the first quarter of 2021 (36.4 percent) and to the first quarter of 2020 (33.4 percent).
Realtor.com’s researchers found that several trends are driving home shoppers to look at properties away from where they currently live, including affordability issues pushing people to Sun Belt locations and remote work allowing buyers to live in warmer and less costly areas.
Six of the top 10 destinations for relocation buyers are in the Sun Belt. In addition, the resumption of normal activities and the desire to return to normal life in urban areas is creating renewed interest in major metro areas.
The top-10 fastest-growing destinations for relocation buyers include:
The search trends analyzed by Realtor.com show that in 8 of the top-10 relocation destinations, listing prices-per-square-foot were lower than the national average of $206. While demand is driving prices up in these markets, half of them saw a lower percentage increase in the price-per-square-foot than the national increase of 15.7 percent when comparing the first quarter of 2022 with the first quarter of 2021.
For example, the price-per-square-foot in McAllen, Tex., is a median of $125, an increase of 13.8 percent during the first quarter of 2022 compared with the first quarter of 2021. The most searchers from out-of-state for property in McAllen came from the D.C. metro area during the first quarter of 2022, where the median price-per-square-foot is $277. D.C. and New York were among the top three places where home shoppers are looking for homes in Augusta, Ga. and Greensboro, N.C., a sign of people searching for affordable housing.
On the flip side, demand from different home shoppers looking to move into D.C. and New York City was higher during the first quarter of 2022 compared with the first quarter of 2021 and was at the highest level of any quarter since the first quarter of 2018.
The top-three places where home shoppers looking to move to D.C. live include New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The top-three places where home shoppers looking to move to New York live include D.C., Philadelphia and Miami. The median price-per-square-foot in New York is $600.
The report is available here.
Source: WP
