When it comes to real estate, Covid changed everything. The question is how long will this last, and are there permanent shifts in the market?
As Covid raged in 2020, we saw a great migration from cities such as New York to places like Florida and the Hamptons where families could safely avoid contact with people in larger homes that could accommodate more people comfortably. Throw in issues like taxes that were already motivating wealthier homeowners to escape to Florida and Texas and you have the acceleration of a pre-existing trend.
In most places in the country, the real estate market is on fire. Prices have spiked and homes don’t stay on the market for long. But now we’re starting to open back up as well, and many people want to get back to real life, and that often means city life.
But even with that backdrop, luxury homes are still selling at a rapid clip:
The demand is so great that even “white elephants” – high-end homes that sat on the market for months before the pandemic began – are selling quickly as their owners willingly splurge on remodeling projects to spruce them up. The motivation is the hot market for premium properties, and an urge to make shabbier ones more alluring for buyers.
The key, however, in this market is having a “turn-key” property. Buyers want to move in right away, so sellers need to make the investment to improve their properties before putting them on the market. That’s a challenge now with the spikes in material prices and the difficulty in finding good contractors who aren’t buried with work.
