At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many white-collar workers suddenly had the ability to work from anywhere—anywhere, that is, with an internet connection stable enough to attend Zoom meetings. Shell-shocked by fast-rising home prices and in desperate need of more square footage, many left their city apartments and small homes in the nearby suburbs behind and purchased much larger, more affordable houses in the farthest out suburbs and smaller cities. Remote work helped to turbocharge these real estate markets.
And then big employers like Amazon, Salesforce, and Disney began calling workers who had been able to telecommute back into their offices. Those big, cheap houses that these buyers had clamored for just months before were abruptly less appealing given the long, expensive commutes that many homeowners and renters were facing.
And now the future of those previously hot real estate markets in the most remote suburbs, also known as exurbs, and secondary cities has become uncertain.
“These ‘Zoom towns’ are the places at most risk of prices actually falling year over year,” says Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist of the Bright MLS, the multiple listing service covering the mid-Atlantic region.