Boston Real Estate for Sale
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Is there an exodus of downtown Boston residents? The early coronavirus outbreaks and exodus of downtown Boston residents had some folks biting their nails over the future of American cities.
Would the pandemic cause urban areas like downtown Boston to regress into the 1970s versions of themselves, characterized by population loss, crumbling infrastructure, and plummeting property values?
Recent Real Estate for Sale Data
Recent data on home sales and values show the answer is no. A report from Zillow found urban and suburban residential real estate markets have fared similarly since the coronavirus hit the United States.
Pending Home Sales
Pending home sales nosedived about equally in urban and suburban areas, according to the report. In all geographic regions they dipped by at least 50 percent at some point between March and July.
Real Estate Nationwide
Nationwide, annual growth in home values in urban and suburban ZIP codes is similar, at 4.3 and 4.1 percent, respectively, according to the report. Home values during the pandemic grew marginally faster in the suburbs: 0.6 percent faster annually in June than in February, versus 0.5 percent in urban areas.
The Trend of Suburban Home Values Rising Faster
This trend of suburban home values rising faster is typically more pronounced where it was already happening before the pandemic, the report found. Comparing February with June, urban home value growth slowed while suburban growth quickened in Boston and New York, both places where the deceleration of urban home value growth was already well underway. The opposite was true in Chicago, with suburban home values growing slower than urban prices after the pandemic hit.
Zillow Real Estate Research
The Zillow research team also searched for a divergence in property values between detached single-family homes, which dominate the suburbs, and condominiums, which are more popular in cities. They found no striking differences: Single-family home values are appreciating 4.4 percent annually and condo prices 3.1 percent.
Price growth in cities has slowed down compared to price growth in the suburbs, but the Zillow researchers caution that this likely has to do with the kinds of homes being sold. Before the pandemic, sale prices were growing 6.4 percent annually in the suburbs and 9.3 percent annually in urban places. By June, sales price growth had fallen to 3.3 percent in the suburbs and 0 percent in the city.
Boston Real Estate and the Bottom Line
The one metric that looks undeniably grim for cities and their landlords is Boston apartment rental pricing, which is clocking slower annual growth in urban places than in suburban places nationwide. Urban annual rent price growth has slowed down 0.6 percentage points more than suburban rent price growth, according to the report. In some cities the spread in rent growth between urban and suburban places is even wider: In New York, it’s 2.5 percent.
