Thursday, August 05, 2021

Moving Away From Work

Lock-down and the rise of home-working is having a big impact on the property market as home-owners begin to change their property expectations and priorities. Online real estate company Zillow has been looking at where house prices are rising fastest, in order to determine where it is that people now want to live.

The simple assumption that many people have been making is that the flexibility of working from home means that people are less interested in inner city properties close to job centers. This is certainly true in many expensive metro areas where property prices have been rising the least. However it isn't true of less expensive metro areas where property prices are rising at an increased rate. Zillow's analysis of property prices is that people have been inspired by lock-down to move to more affordable places - which could be outside city centers or in some case close to city centers. 

Zillow's The Great Reshuffling Is Changing How Far Americans Are Willing to Commute includes an interactive map which allows you to compare the median home value by commute time in major U.S. cities. Choose a city and the map uses you an isochrone layer to show traveling times and median house price values. The different polygons represent ten minute steps in commuting time from the downtown core. The colors of these polygons reflect the median home price in that area. 

According to Zillow affordability is the key driver of recent increases in property prices. Commuting time is no longer such a big a factor in deciding where to live.

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