What were we searching for in real estate in 2020?
While it's our job to keep up with real estate trends, an extraordinary number of people spent many, many hours browsing for properties during our pandemic lockdown in 2020. Zillow and Realtor.com both saw increased traffic on their websites, as did we. (Some are keeping that habit alive two years later, and to that we say, "Keep it up!")
Zillow recently analyzed their data and reported on their blog what we were all looking for:
A warm climate and a fun location! Key West's properties were favorited more than any other location across the United States.
Renters searched for apartments and were more concerned whether the landlord allowed dogs than how many bedrooms the property had. And many of us adopted dogs.
People searched for large yards, (probably because we weren't allowed to leave the confines of our property lines).
1 in 8 people made offers sight unseen!
https://www.zillow.com/z/c/what-moved-us/
In addition to this, Americans searched for, converted unused space, or repurposed spaces in their homes for home offices, gyms, schools, meditation spaces...in fact, offices and yard space went from "nice to have" to "must have" in less than one year.
As companies started waking up to the fact that working remotely is something that actually works, and people started searching for properties in the country rather than the city, and some, completely out of state. Given that we could work from anywhere, states like Vermont, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Alaska and Maryland all offered significant incentives to move there. And it's not too late; the list of countries, states and cities is growing.
Also in 2020, record number of people (including us) searched a bit and took advantage of low interest rates by refinancing. According to Freddie Mac, "With mortgage rates reaching historical lows in 2020, mortgage refinancing activity reached its highest annual total since 2003. ... For full-year 2020, there were about $2.6 trillion in inflation-adjusted refinance originations, more than double the volume in the prior year." But refi's weren't the only ones taking advantage; first time homebuyers comprised over 30% of the market in 2020.
There it is. 2020 real estate search in a nutshell. It was a terrible year, but we now have at least one dog, a new home office/gym/study area, a lower house payment, and with online home search, a little online activity that keeps us dreaming. May we never stop.