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  #1  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 2:47 AM
the urban politician the urban politician is offline
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Covid induced flight to the burbs and heartland: Long term??

A Prairie Home Contagion

In the booming world of homebuilding, major players are stampeding into parts of the country long overlooked. All signs point to an escape from NewYork — Kansas City, here I come.

By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Senior Reporter, Tampa Bay Business Journal

Quote:
America’s heartland is positioned for a post-pandemic housing boom if current trends continue.

In greater Kansas City, approvals to build single-family homes were up 26% year to date through September. So, too, were the Rust Belt cities of Columbus, Ohio, and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Near Fort Collins, Colorado, they rose 47%, and the rural area around Clarksville, Tennessee — just north of Nashville and south of the Kentucky border — reported a 63% increase, tops in the country among major metros The Business Journals analyzed.


Robert Dietz, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, D.C., said it’s no surprise the country’s biggest homebuyers are thundering into more rural, less populous, areas of the country. He said the coronavirus and its effects on remote-work policies have turbocharged buyer demand for bigger homes and a flight from congested urban areas, a trend that’s already triggered a surge in building activity in places long dismissed as too far-flung from hot job markets and top-ranked research clusters.

Meanwhile, the reverse is playing out for many of the priciest and traditionally most sought after housing markets.

Among the 354 metropolitan areas The Business Journals analyzed, 236 reported year-to-date increases in single-family building permits through September, with areas in the Midwest and South recording the largest increases. Conversely, pricier and more congested metros — most notably California’s Bay Area as well as Denver and New York City — saw the largest one-year declines.

“Columbus and Indianapolis — those kinds of cities are going to emerge as winners over the next few years,” Dietz said.

Indeed, Covid-19 has relegated people to their homes for activities once reserved for commercial real estate. Home schooling, home workouts, home offices — all are driving buyers toward larger residences. And because they’re spending less time commuting, those same buyers are proving increasingly willing to move farther from city centers to larger spaces at affordable prices.

The phrase “drive ‘till you qualify” was a mainstay in the housing runup of the early aughts. In those days, spurred by lax mortgage requirements, buyers flocked to the affordability of distant exurbs. The pendulum has swung back in the exurbs’ favor, as the novel coronavirus has consumers rethinking their homes — and driving ‘till they qualify — now that remote work appears here to stay.

“It’s a function of the fact that telecommuting increases the ability of renters and homebuyers to expand their tolerable commute times,” Dietz said.

None of which has escaped the nation’s homebuilding giants. In recent earnings calls, Miami-based Lennar Corp. said that most categories of its home sales rose significantly year over year and that it was “ramping up” land purchases to keep pace with homebuilding. Likewise, PulteGroup Inc. CEO Ryan Marshall recently said signs of an emigration to the ’burbs already are afoot.


Pulte’s share price through Oct. 26 was up 10% for the year, and Lennar’s climbed 34%.

“While we can debate the magnitude, ZIP code-level analysis on buying patterns points to a movement of renters and homeowners from urban centers into the surrounding suburbs,” Marshall said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call.

Meanwhile, all signs point to a continued expansion of homes’ average size.

In a September housing report, Moody’s Investor Services said “the new realities of virtual living” have given new value to amenities such as space, flexible layouts, backyards and customized technologies.


“These factors contributed to favorable demand trends amid the pandemic, which we believe will continue for years to come, including after the vaccine is found and risk of Covid-19 infection subsides,” it said.

Housing experts said the shift could push the average U.S. home to roughly 3,000 square feet, or 37% larger than it was 20 years ago. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 46% of new single-family homes topped 2,400 square feet in 2019, versus 34% in 1999.

https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/...om-cities.html
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 2:49 AM
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Covid induced flight to the burbs and heartland: Do we have evidence to prove this is even a real thing?
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 2:50 AM
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The reason I think the trends are long term:

1. Many people will permanently work from home
2. People will try to get the most out of their money (ie space for cheap)
3. Once one owns a home, locked into a low interest rate mortgage, they are much more likely to stay put than if they were renting
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 2:51 AM
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Originally Posted by craigs View Post
Covid induced flight to the burbs and heartland: Do we have evidence to prove this is even a real thing?
Well, you could read the article that, ya know, accompanied the thread opening post

Just a suggestion.....
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 3:06 AM
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Centropolis Centropolis is offline
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funnily as a midwesterner i’ve only really heard of this happening en masse in metro LA where our friends are heading to the san bernardino mountains and work contacts in boston with new hampshire, etc.

it’s a big country and the midwest/heartland isn’t the only escape.
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 3:17 AM
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Isn't the heartland the hardest hit part of the US for covid right now?
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  #7  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 3:29 AM
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Yes lol. Covid is much worse there right now.
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 3:50 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LA21st View Post
Yes lol. Covid is much worse there right now.
Yeah, that's seems like a situation that a normal and well-adjusted person would lol about.

"OMG! your rona is so much worse than ours, hahaha!!!"
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 3:58 AM
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Good grief.
I wasn't laughing because it's worse there. I have good friends in Chicago. I had a strain of covid in may.
It was kind of humorous that the article is saying the midwest is going to benefit the most but at the time, its not the best place to be.
Its more about the timing of it.

But ya know, keep judging as you.do. It seems to be often.
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 4:15 AM
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^ well, it was hard to tell with the way you worded your response.

AND, your reputation for disdaining non-coastal america precedes you.

Ya know, condescension is never a good look. Not that it would ever stop you.
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 4:17 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
^ well, it was hard to tell.

Your reputation for disdaining non-coastal america precedes you.

Condescension is never a good look.
I've repeated many times chicago is my 2nd favorite city here and traveled to places in the midwest often. Madison is one of my favorite "smaller" cities.

If I hated Chicago or the midwest so much, why would I stay there 10 years. Point is, ipeople shouldn't go off a few comments.
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 4:27 AM
the urban politician the urban politician is offline
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Anyhow, none of these points about “nanner nanner nanner! You’re Rona is worse than mine!” refutes any of the points and data mentioned in the article
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 4:30 AM
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I cringe to the fucking moon whenever "heartland" is used unironically.
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 4:30 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LA21st View Post
Point is, people shouldn't go off a few comments.
Point is, on relatively anonymous web-forums like this one, comments are the ONLY thing we have to go off of.

I legit thought you were throwing around more of your coastal elitism with the "yeah lol" remark. If that was a mistaken assumption on my part, then that's on me, and I'll own it.

However, there is a reason why my brain even went in that direction to begin with from your initial comment......


On web forums like this, you are what you say.

That's all any of us have.
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 4:31 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
Yeah, that's seems like a situation that a normal and well-adjusted person would lol about.

"OMG! your rona is so much worse than ours, hahaha!!!"
Considering who it's coming from, are you surprised?
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 4:33 AM
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Anywho , I wouldn't mind if kc or Cleveland, st Louis got better?
Good for them. I've never said they were bad places.
I've never knocked Detroit.
Contrary to my "reputation".

I've made comments about weather maybe. Not the city itself
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 4:34 AM
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Originally Posted by The North One View Post
Considering who it's coming from, are you surprised?
Ugh, you knock the California any chance you get.
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 5:46 AM
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The shift to the suburbs (and the huge spike in car sales this year) are disappointing news for those of us who care about building vibrant cities and reining in climate change.

However, I think there's more at play than just covid. We may look back and see that the pandemic only hastened things that were already happening.

-millennials reaching peak child-rearing age
-the continued failure of cities to plan for the needs of families, in terms of schools, housing stock, etc
-rents in center cities reaching a "tipping point" of pain, esp. on the coasts
-the fierce resistance from mature communities (suburbs and cities, wealthy and poor alike) towards infill
-electric and hybrid car technology has come to seem "inevitable" so people feel absolved of their climate sins in buying a big suburban house/big suburban car
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 10:17 AM
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What really changed?

People moved back to the cities, starting in the 2000's and intensifying in the 2010's, not because they like smaller and expensive apartments, but because they want to experience urban life, walking through the city, going to restaurants and bars.

When cities were closed, they lost all that, but they are pretty much reopened or will be it somewhere in the close future.

People who like suburbs (pretty much everybody till the 90's, a bit less now) will keep living there, and people who like the cities will stay, specially now as they tend to be a bit cheaper for while.
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Old Posted Nov 7, 2020, 1:38 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The North One View Post
I cringe to the fucking moon whenever "heartland" is used unironically.
it’s a weird term and definitely a bit cringe to me too. i never see it used on st. louis television, but do remember it on western kentucky tv when at my grandparents house as a kid.

it think it generally is used to describe non-metropolitan (or smaller metros) in the central part of the u.s. but away from the great lakes and southern/eastern coast, and it straddles the upper south, lower midwest, and eastern plains.
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