How is it AUGUST already!? Oh yeah. June and July were so busy I barely had time to realize the sun has finally come out. 🙂
Although COVID put a total wrench into the early spring market, summer has quickly rebounded to (almost) normal levels of activity. The hungry buyers who skipped early spring have been hard at work, and more sellers have been obliging and putting homes on the market as we’ve more or less figured out how to do all this home-selling safely.
A Place in the Country
With no end in sight to the current COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people have been eyeing a new home out of the City. Whether you’re talking about Seattle, Tacoma, or somewhere else entirely, more space to spread out, work, and play is on nearly everyone’s mind.
So, does that mean a mass exodus from the big cities? Not exactly. It does depend a bit on where those people are located. In hard-hit New York City, yes, more people are fleeing for the country.
But for many, it’s not like you can just pack up and move so quickly. Those who are in more high-risk demographics, and those who have been in a home for years (with all the stuff that entails) aren’t going to be able to so quickly uproot. Hence why there’s no glut of homes popping on the market in urban areas.
RENTERS, however, have more flexibility to get the heck out of Dodge a lot quicker. But they (obviously) don’t have a home to sell when they go, so no help there for our chronic shortage of homes for sale.
What Does the Future Hold?
As the Washington Post writes: “It’s too early in the coronavirus crisis to know definitively how many people will leave cities. It could be months or years before we know the pandemic’s impact on urban areas, and much is still uncertain.”
A lot of that uncertainty depends on several squishy factors, like interest rates staying at record lows, how long people can continue to work from home (and whether or not they want to), and how circumstances unfold as cities open up. (At this point, Amazon corporate and other Big Tech employees aren’t going back until at least January 2021, if ever).
The timing and availability of a COVID-19 vaccine will also be part of the equation. It will take people longer than a 10-minute home search to decide what their future truly holds.
In the meantime, you can bet we are all re-evaluating what is truly important to us in where we live, especially now that home is everything.
Check out what we’ve been up to over the last 6 weeks:
Time for a Move
If now might be the time for you to finally take advantage of today’s record-low interest rates and finally leave renting life behind, or if it’s time to downsize, we are here to help. Even if a move is another 6 to 12 months or more down the road for you, we are happy to answer your questions and help you figure out your next steps. Contact Megan today.