What I think will happen is the buyers of these houses will eventually decide they either don't like where they moved to, their job will change and require them to come back into the office, or something else will happen that will suddenly make these people change their minds. Then, you will start to see more and more houses listed for sale, and prices will have to become more competitive and the market will flip in favor of buyers. That is when we will start to see the correction in the local markets. I don't foresee a large scale housing crash, but more of a gradual shift back to reality pricing in many currently overpriced markets.
A lot of people are making rash, emotional, spontaneous decisions right now. I don't expect a lot of it to stick.
I don’t know. My husband and I
are the people who relocated due to remote work, though we did it in early 2019 prior to the pandemic.
We were born into and lived our whole lives in a high COL area. We bought our first home based strictly on what we could afford within driving distance of our jobs, which meant a one-hour-one-way commute for him and an hour-and-twenty minute commute, one-way, for me in an area with some of the worst traffic in the country. The house was fine — a typical suburban townhouse. Neither of us ever cared for the area — always a bit redneck and slummy — but our far flung jobs and social circles meant we never spent much time in the community anyway, so it wasn’t a huge deal.
We looked into moving many times over the years but there was always some major drawback that kept us in place. Astronomical prices in the nice areas, high crime and abysmal schools in the affordable areas, or we’d be stuck moving another hour+ farther out to some podunk town to strike the right balance of what we wanted vs. what we could get for the money. So, we stayed, way longer than we ever intended.
Seventeen years passed. By then, I was a SAHM and my husband’s job had him working from home most of the time with just an occasional trip into the office or to an on-site location. We spent more time at home and, boy, had the area really gone downhill over the years. The only community amenities in our neighborhood were two sad little tot lots. The only place within walking distance, through the woods over broken liquor bottles, was a rundown shopping center with a Food Lion, dollar store, and a McDonalds. The area was economically depressed, crime was up, the schools that my son would be attending carried a score of 1 out of 10, and we hated the place more than ever.
We were so fed up we threw the towel in on the whole damn state.
We put together a list of everything we wanted to improve our quality of life, started researching and scouring maps, and found it. My husband told his boss we were moving and that he was hoping his position could be made fully remote. His boss pushed back on that and my husband said fine, he’d fly back once a month for a couple of days so nothing would change with his current on-site presence. And we left.
We now live in a lower COL area in a city that frequently ends up on those “Best places to live” lists. Very low crime, top notch schools. Our house is four times the size of our old one. The neighborhood is picturesque and has a lake, pool, tennis courts, pickleball courts, playground, clubhouse, and connects to a beautiful county park that has a packed-full schedule of community events. We’re walking distance from tons of shopping, dining, and recreation. A mile south of us is a chain of riverside national parks stretching 48 miles east to west. A mile north is a large greenway that connects several of the area cities through an expansive network of trails and multi-use pathways, allowing pedestrians and cyclists access through parks, forests, nature preserves, city centers, and shopping and entertainment complexes. I’m 20 minutes from a major city, 5 minutes from a midsize city, and an hour from the mountains. We have everything we could want at our fingertips.
Funnily, my husband never once had to fly “back home” for work. His company started embracing remote work more and more, several other employees moved out-of-state, all of their new hires are scattered around the country, and now, just three years later, it’s a fully remote company.
The difference between how we live now vs. how we lived before is incredible. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I would never willingly go back. You’d have to drag me kicking and screaming.
I’m sure some people might move and then change their minds, but I wouldn’t underestimate how many people were only living where they were because they were tied there by their jobs. Once given the freedom to go anywhere, I think there will be a good number of people who find themselves happier elsewhere in a place of their choosing, as opposed to a place of their circumstances.
Right? I'm over here in So Cal like "I would buy a $600k, 1800sq ft 4 bedroom house YESTERDAY. Sign me up!"
We paid less than that for our 5600sq ft, 5 bedroom (will be 6 bedroom after we finish a currently unfinished space). Maybe that’s why I have so many neighbors from California.
Thanks for reading my life story!
Two people I work with their age just bought homes for $750,000 and $550,000. I get agita just thinking about it, as it impacts a lot of things in life. 
