The Markets Most Recovered Since Start of the Pandemic

The housing market has proven to be generally immune to the economy’s current predicament, though some areas are faring better than others. Realtor.com’s director of economic research says markets that contain the virus best are seeing the strongest recoveries. Topping the list of most recovered is Boston, Mass. at 122.52%. Anything over the 100% threshold shows how much better the city is doing since January 2020, the site says. Though cities are recovering, buyer interests have shifted and it affects what’s selling and what’s sitting. In Boston, for example, townhomes and condos are sitting while McMansions have sold at original asking prices.

So where are these comeback kids—the housing markets rebounding the most since the start of the COVID-19 crisis?

Realtor.com found that more than half of the largest metropolitan areas have recovered from their pandemic lows. (Metros include the main city and the surrounding suburbs, exurbs, and smaller cities.) But the housing markets in less expensive, smaller cities as well as the suburbs and farther out towns where buyers can get more square footage for their money, the easier to social distance in, are more in demand than high-rise condos and apartments in the nation's largest, most expensive city centers.

"People are looking for larger homes and also looking for value," says Vivas.

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