Homebuying Demand Just Keeps Getting Stronger

6/16/2020

Buyers Prefer Three-Dimensional Scans to Video-Chat Tours

Online interest in listings now takes many forms. As shelter-in-place rules subside in parts of the country, much of the demand for virtual showings is from relocating homebuyers who want to avoid a long drive or a ight to tour a home. Fifteen percent of tours are happening via video-chat rather than in person. This is half of its April peak, but still 30 times higher than it was pre-pandemic. The popularity of three-dimensional scans has been even more durable, with views of these scans on Redn.com increasing 42% from April to May. In markets like Orange County and Seattle, a quarter of new listings include a scan, and we now believe this will be the most popular way to virtualize a showing, with buyers preferring to move through the home at their own pace, whenever they want.

People Are On the Move

Many of these relocating buyers are pursuing the suburbs, or smaller, more affordable cities. “It’s odd, because I’ve got two different sellers moving to Oklahoma, both for jobs,” said Ms. Shakur, the Redn agent fromMaryland. “That big migration we’re all expecting, it’s beginning to happen. People are now moving more to the interior of the country. I also have a lot of clients who are retiring and moving down south to more tax-favorable states.” “I think some sellers are now at the point where they don’t want to be in the city anymore or keep paying high prices to stay here,” said Mr. Traub, one of Redn’s LA teammanagers. “A lot of people relocate to LA for work, but now they realize they could go back home and their money would go further, especially when they can work remotely.” It has been a point of debate within Redn whether the movements of people we’re now seeing are mostly to the outlying areas of the same city, or to entirely different parts of the country. What we can be sure of now is that this latter group of cross-country movers is already increasing in size, albeit only modestly: in April and May of 2020, 27% of Redn.com users searched outside their metropolitan area, compared to 25% in April and May of 2019. We now speculate that the exibility to work remotely, combined with low interest rates, will lead to higher levels of home ownership in the U.S., which have mostly been declining since 2004. “With interest rates so low, a lot of people want to buy who are currently renting in the city,” said Redn Boston Agent Elynn Chen. “They want to go somewhere for more space.” See Latest Coronavirus Housing Market News

https://www.redfin.com/blog/home-buying-demand-gets-stronger-amid-pandemic/

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