The migration trends that drove housing demand during the pandemic are ending. But that doesn't mean people aren't moving, according to an Inman analysis of historic data
This is the third part in a multistory series on the spring housing market and what history might tell us about the present. Read part 1 here and part 2 here. Also be sure to join us in person from Aug. 8-10 for Inman Connect Las Vegas, where we’ll discuss how the spring played out.
When the coronavirus pandemic reached the U.S. in 2020, Tiffany McQuaid’s market shifted quickly.
“That was our top thing because all of a sudden people could just work from everywhere,” McQuaid recently told Inman. “Everybody was coming down, and that was the core reason why. Because all of a sudden, they could work from anywhere.”
McQuaid runs McQuaid & Company in Naples, Florida. The firm has an office in a colorful building just steps from the waterfront. Palm trees, umbrellas, a Bernini-style fountain and an open-air bar round out the neighborhood. It is, in other words, exactly the kind of place where you might want to while away the pandemic years, or simply the colder months when the rest of the country is shoveling itself out of the snow.
But this year, things are a bit different.
“I’m not noticing it, nor am I hearing about it like we did after the pandemic,” McQuaid said of remote work. “If it’s happening, people aren’t really talking about it.”
McQuaid, like many agents right now, remains busy.
But her anecdotal observations speak to something deeper. Through the pandemic, moving patterns in the U.S. became a dramatic story. Everyone, it seemed, was picking up and heading out for greener pastures. But now that the impacts and restrictions of the health crises have abated, there’s an open question as to what happens in the housing market.
Will people still move out of pricey coastal areas? Will migration be a driving force in the housing market? And what does all of this mean for this spring, which will be the least COVID-impacted second quarter since the pandemic began?
To understand what’s happening and to conclude the “Past is Prologue” series on the spring market, Inman reached out to experts and agents. But we also looked at historical data on migration patterns to see what was going on when the housing market wasn’t subject to a global health emergency.
The takeaway from this data is that over time, the U.S. housing market has been dominated by a trend of less moving generally, more longer-distance relocations and migration out of pricey areas. And now, the spring of 2023 is poised to function as a kind of transitionary period in which the influence of the pandemic winds down and some amount of normalcy sets in. Which is to say migration isn’t poised to fizzle out this year, but it may end up looking more like the distant past.
Read the full article here: https://www.inman.com/2023/03/31/will-migration-fizzle-out-in-2023-history-points-to-a-shift/
