Moving Trends in Covid Life

Many people are looking to move after endless months of covid work-from-home. It makes a lot of sense, since there’s no point in paying higher rent to live in a city when you aren’t getting any of the benefits of city life and you don’t need to live there in order to work.

When we were looking for our current apartment, we wanted to be really close to the train so it would be fast and easy to commute to work (not to mention, easy for friends to visit!).  Now, with endless months of work-from-home, I haven’t been on a train since March, but we’re still paying city rent for the convenient location. We’re also near a bunch of restaurants and coffeeshops, but again, I haven’t been anywhere in months.

This article from US News and World Report shows many Americans leaving cities for more rural area, especially moving towards Western states. It’s not quite the dramatic urban exodus of early summer scare headlines, of course. Here in Boston, the moving trend is towards “exurbs” like the Cape or Central Mass, according to Boston Magazine.  These areas have a much lower cost of living than Boston, a little more space for socially-distanced walks, but are still close enough to come into the Boston office for meetings, whenever in-person working comes back.

For many people looking to save money, this is a time to consider buying instead of renting. (Yeah, I read that The Atlantic article about people who just saved so much money because they didn’t spend on travel this year, but for most people I know, furloughed weeks, reduced hours or job loss have reduced budgets.)

This MortgageInfo calculator will let you see if you’re better off renting your current place or buying a new place. The advanced version lets you enter all the expected expenses of renting, including rental insurance, and all the expected expenses of buying a home, including homeowners’ association dues, as well as expected property appreciation for the years you plan to live in your new home. This way, people looking to move can make sure it’s a good investment. Of course, in 2020 all predictions are a little risky, but this New York Times article talks about dramatically lower mortgage rates in 2020, so it could be a very smart time to buy a home.

Since so many employees are looking at working at home for at least another 6 months, or even longer as some companies set up indefinite WFH policies, we could also see an increase in people living and working in rental AirBnBs outside the city or staying long-term at their summer homes.