Report: Real Estate Records Set in Coronavirus Era: High Prices, Quick Sales, One Third of Americans Moved

Another sector of the U.S. economy is looking back on how the coronavirus pandemic reshaped it, and in the case of real estate at least 10 records were added to the books, including high prices, quick sales, and many Americans moving.

The Redfin real estate organization put out the report on how lockdowns and working from home changed the way Americans sell and buy houses.

“This past year, home-sale prices hit the highest median of all time, the number of homes for sale fell to an all-time low, and there was record demand for second homes,” the Manistee News Advocate reported.

Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said in a statement:

The ongoing pandemic, including its seismic effect on the U.S. economy and the way Americans live and work, has made 2021’s housing market anything but typical. Remote work, low mortgage rates, a shortage of building materials and wealth inequality that has allowed an influx of affluent Americans to buy vacation homes, to name just a few factors, have come together to create a historic year for real estate.

“Buyers paid more for homes, bought sooner than they planned, searched outside their hometowns or all of the above. This year’s frenzied housing market has been one for the books—but it may become more balanced in 2022,” Fairweather said.

Here are 10 of those real estate records:

#1 — The typical U.S. home sold for nearly $400,000. The national median home-sale price hit $386,000 in June, an all-time high and up 24.4 percent year over year, Redfin reported. Prices were much higher than they were pre-pandemic in almost every part of the country.

#2 — Home supply dropped to its lowest level in history. There were just 1.38 million homes for sale nationally in June on a seasonally adjusted basis. That’s an all-time low and down 23 percent year over year, Redfin reported.

#3 — The typical home sold in just 15 days, the lowest median days on market in history and down from 39 days in June 2020. The speed of the market is due partly to the supply problem, which has led buyers to pounce on homes as soon as they are put on the market. Sometimes sight unseen.

#4 — Over 60 percent of homes went off the market in two weeks.

#5 — More than half of homes sold above list price, 56.5 percent went for above list price, a record high.Homes selling above list price is mostly because of  bidding wars, which were commonplace this year,

#6: Mortgage rates dropped to 2.65 percent. Low mortgage rates are one reason for the homebuying frenzy, which resulted in the supply shortage and surging prices.

#7 — Investors purchased nearly one in five of all homes bought in the U.S. Real estate investors bought 18.2% of homes that were purchased in the U.S. during the third quarter of 2021. Investors bought a record $63.6 billion in homes over that period, up from $35.7 billion a year earlier.

#8 — Demand for second homes nearly doubled from before the pandemic, meaning people working from home could move from a beach house or a ski chalet.

#9 — Nearly one-third of Americans looked to move to a different metro area — 31.5 percent of Redfin users wanted to move to a different metro area in the first quarter of 2021, an all-time high and up from 26 percent from a year earlier.

#10 — The typical luxury home sold for 25 percent more than the year before. The median sale price of U.S. luxury homes jumped 25.8 percent year over year to $1,025,000 in the second quarter of 2021, marking record price growth.

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