Shocking REALITY - Housing Market Boomtowns AFTER Pandemic

Today we're going to take a look at the top 10 pandemic boomtowns and see how they're doing two years after they upended the entire housing market. Back in early 2020, mortgage rates were low and everybody assumed work from home was going to last forever. This meant someone could keep their same high-paying job in a coastal city and buy a house anywhere in the country. They might have two, three, or four times the buying power of someone who's already there, but they went into cities like Austin, Texas, Boise, Idaho, and Tampa, Florida, and spent money as if they were still in markets like San Francisco, San Diego, or New York City. They drove up the home prices in the cities they were moving to, and these pandemic boomtowns would never be the same again. This chart shows a percentage increase in the median price per square foot in the two-year period between 2020 and 2022. At the low end was Providence, Rhode Island at 28%, and at the top of the list was Austin, Texas at 70%. I was here in Austin, Texas, when this happened, and a 70% increase in the median price per square foot completely upended anybody's ability to estimate true market value for a house, especially after the county used those pandemic prices to assess values on all the other homes that were never listed for sale. It's two years after all this happened, and we're still trying to figure out what homes are worth here in Austin. There are sellers out there right now who have had their house listed for sale for over a year, and even though there are no showings, let alone offers, they are still convinced that there are plenty of buyers who are still willing to pay what those overspenders paid in 2020. These pandemic boomtowns were not confined to a specific geographic area, and their populations ranged from about 120,000 in Hartford to just under a million here in Austin. One thing that is interesting is that 8 out of 10 of them were state capitals. The price run-ups in these other boomtowns may not have been as extreme as they were here in Austin, but they were still significant. One thing that was true for all of these cities is that many of the people who lived there prior to the pandemic found themselves priced out of the market, especially after mortgage rates began to rise in early 2022. It's now been two years since those mortgage rates shot up, so what's going on in these boomtowns today? Well, surprisingly, in 8 out of 10 of them, the median price per square foot is higher today than it was in 2022. Boise, Idaho is down 12%, and Austin is down 21%. But all the others are up. The median list price for a home in Providence, Rhode Island in 2024 is $499,950, and the median list price in Hartford, Connecticut is $100,000 less at $399,900. Both of these boomtowns are in the Northeast, and the population density there means that neither one of them have been able to keep up with the growing demand to live outside the major population hubs like New York City. These boomtowns have not been able to meet the increased demand by trying to outbuild it like cities in the South and in the West. Which means that even though the pandemic is over and mortgage rates are high, home prices in both of these cities are higher than they were in 2022. The median price per square foot in Providence is 23% higher than it was in 2022, and in Hartford, it's 38% higher. The median list price for a home in Denver in 2024 is $619,900. They've seen a return to pre-pandemic sales list ratios, and inventory is close to pre-pandemic levels, which would seem to indicate that the market is stabilizing. But prices are still higher than they were in 2022, although the rate of increase has slowed. In 2022, sales prices were averaging 8% higher than the original list price. And in 2024, that average is 2.5% below the list price. The median price per square foot in Denver is 9.3% higher than it was in 2022. The median list price for a home in Las Vegas in 2024 is $470,000. The Las Vegas market has seen its fair share of ups and downs over the last several years. It led the mid-2000s real estate bubble as well as the 2008 housing crash. Historically, home prices in Las Vegas have been below the national average. But during the pandemic, they went above that national average. There has been a modest retreat from the pandemic highs, but the median price per square foot is still about 6% higher than it was in March 2022. The median list price for a home in Salt Lake City in 2024 is $579,999. The average days on market dropped to 8 days during the pandemic, but today is closer to 9 weeks, which would indicate that the market has slowed. But prices have not retreated. In fact, the median price per square foot is 18% higher than it was during the pandemic. The median list price for a home in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2024 is $499,990. This Metro saw the average days on market drop to 11 days during the pandemic, but now it's at 42 days. But just like all the other boom towns we've looked at already, even though the market has slowed, prices have gone up. The median price per square foot in Raleigh is 8% higher than it was during the pandemic. The median list price for a home in Nashville in 2024 is $558,990. Realtor.com created a demand metric, which is a way to measure overall buyer interest in metros across the United States. And Nashville dropped from the top 20% during the pandemic to the bottom 20% after. But in spite of this drop in buyer demand, Nashville's home prices have gone up. The median price per square foot in Nashville is about 20% higher than it was during the pandemic. The median list price for a home in Tampa in 2024 is $419,000. The Tampa Metro added almost 200,000 new residents between 2019 and 2024, which is the equivalent of dropping Salt Lake City right in the middle of it. This rapid migration drove the high buyer demand, which drove home prices up, which in turn drove property taxes up. When you add things like natural disasters like hurricanes, which sent home insurance rates through the roof, many people have been priced out of the Tampa market, but prices are still going up. The median price per square foot in is about 12% higher than it was during the pandemic. The median list price for a home in Boise, Idaho in 2024 is $580,000. Boise was one of the poster childs for the pandemic run-ups. It developed a reputation as a refuge for California exiles who cashed in their coastal homes and then upgraded to a bigger house for less money. Boise had the second highest percentage increase in the median price per square foot during the pandemic, increasing nearly 60% between 2020 and 2022. They've also seen the second highest rate of decline after the pandemic. The median price per square foot in Boise is about 12% less than it was during the pandemic. The median list price for a home in Austin in 2024 is $549,733. Austin saw a 70% increase in the median price per square foot during the pandemic, which was the highest in the United States. They've also seen the highest decline after. Median sales prices dropped from 9% above the initial list price to 3.5% below. The median price per square foot in Austin is about 21% less than it was during the pandemic. These boomtowns led the nation in price increases during the pandemic, and when mortgage rates began to rise in early 2022, buyer demand began to decrease. In spite of that, 8 out of 10 of these boomtowns have seen the median price per square foot increase during the last two years. And the question that everybody wants to know is, does this mean home prices are going to continue to go up? Well, even though you might be praying for some type of housing crash to bring prices back to where they were before the pandemic, in this video, I'll explain to you why that is probably not going to happen.