- Suburban home listings are not currently getting any more attention on Zillow than last year, relative to urban or rural listings. Total page views on suburban homes are up from a year ago.
- Traffic to rural listings was up 0.9 percentage points year-over-year in April; urban up 0.8%; suburban down 1.5%.
- Some metros hit hardest by the coronavirus saw a rise in traffic to listings entirely outside the metro area.
The coronavirus pandemic has sparked questions about the future of cities: Will a new fear of density cause people to flee urban cores for more spread-out suburbs or rural areas? So far, Zillow data suggest the answer is "No."
Zillow compared web traffic to for-sale listings on Zillow in ZIP codes considered urban, suburban or rural in April 2019 and April 2020. In both 2019 and 2020, suburban listings garnered the majority of page views from Zillow users, but there has been no suburban surge this year in the wake of the pandemic. Total page views on suburban homes is up year-over year, but their share of all views to urban, suburban and/or rural areas is down: Suburban home listings nationwide saw their share of the pie shrink slightly this April compared to a year ago, from 65.7% of all page views to 64.2%. The suburbs' loss has been other regions' gain: rural listings rose from 23.4% to 24.3% of all traffic, and urban listings grew from 10.8% to 11.6% of all traffic.
It's unclear what's driving these small differences in monthly shares of web traffic, and it may simply reflect random variation over time. But the data do not provide any early evidence for an overall shift in search behavior away from urban cores, even as survey data point to shifting attitudes. A recent Zillow survey found that a majority of people who recently began working from home would consider moving, particularly to find a home with a dedicated home office or generally more space — features traditionally found more easily in the suburbs. But if these stated preferences are or will soon lead to real-world moves, we haven't seen it in the data yet.
Local Variation
In metropolitan areas hit particularly early or hard by the pandemic, the web traffic data do tell some interesting stories. The New York City metropolitan area has seen a dramatic rise in the share of its residents' web traffic looking at homes in other metro areas. The share of page views from New York-area users ending up at homes outside the New York metro rose from 34.8% in April 2019 to 40.1% last month, one of the largest such increases among major metro areas, and one not in line with national trends. Nationwide, the share of out-of-town page views was virtually identical this year at 48.1%, compared to 48.2% last April. For New Yorkers looking farther afield, the fastest rising out-of-town destination is Miami, where listings drew 3% of New Yorkers' page views, up from 2.2% last year. Other large metros more popular with New York home searchers this year compared to last include Atlanta (search traffic is up to 1.4% from 0.9% a year ago) and Los Angeles (up to 1.3% from 0.8%).
Some other metro areas hard-hit by the pandemic are also seeing resident Zillow users turn their attention to out-of-town listings: Detroit saw it rise from 31.4 to 44.1% of traffic; Boston saw it rise from 49.7% to 55.0%. This year's newly more-popular search destinations from Detroit included Grand Rapids, and, perhaps surprisingly, the Boston and New York metro areas. Bostonians had the most growth in traffic for listings in the nearby Providence, Cape Cod, and Portland (Maine) metro areas. It's too soon to tell if those rises in outward-looking traffic shares reflect a long-term shift, or if local home shopping has been more impacted in these metros in the short-term because local lockdowns have been particularly sharp in these areas.
On the other hand, residents of West Coast metros seem even more eager to stick around their current homes. The Seattle metro area, home to the first confirmed COVID-19 case in January, saw outward-looking traffic stay virtually flat, shrinking from 56.4% of all page views in April 2019 to 55.9% in April 2020. In San Francisco, outward-facing traffic shrank from 62.6% of views to 60.7% over the same period. In Los Angeles, outward-bound traffic represents less than half of page views originating from the market, though it did rise somewhat over the past year, from 47.9% to 49.2% of web traffic.
Extending the Cord, Not Cutting It
Among in-metro searches, a large majority do end up in the suburbs, but not any more than last year — and in fact, slightly less: The share of in-metro searchers looking at listings in the suburban parts of their current metro areas shrank from 73.2% last year to 72.9% this year. And the share of traffic to listings in urban areas actually rose somewhat, to 13.8% in April 2020 from 13.5% in 2019. Broadly, these changes are minuscule, but if we were going to see an emerging flight to the suburbs, we would see it in this data first. Enticed by more affordable and spacious suburban homes and/or less-tethered to a downtown office and regular commute, urban residents may soon look outside the city if and when currently temporary changes in work environments become more permanent.
Even then, though, it is unlikely that movers will completely abandon the city and its numerous amenities — including culture, arts, nightlife and history — that can't be found in the suburbs or the country. It's very likely that movers won't entirely cut the cord with their nearest urban center — rather, they may exchange it for a slightly longer extension cord. And that says nothing of the millions of U.S. workers living in urban areas but commuting to the suburbs or rural areas for work. More than third of workers in the Seattle metro and more than half in Minneapolis-St. Paul do so, trends echoed in many large metros. This signifies a sizable population more likely to be uninterested in leaving the city for the suburbs even if the option for remote work was more widespread.
The share of traffic ending up in the suburbs was smaller this year than last year in all of the nation's 35 largest metro areas. In the west coast metros highlighted above, there is also no local story of rising suburban preferences. Local-originated traffic to Seattle-area listings shifted in favor of urban ZIP codes, which took 26.7% of the page views, up from 25.0% in 2019, while suburban listings slipped from 68.9% to 67.4%. San Francisco similarly saw a slight suburban slide for those looking close to home, from 61.0% to 60.3% of local-originated traffic, while urban listings gained share, from 37.3% to 38.0%.
And Zillow users looking beyond their metro area are also not flocking to suburban listings. Nationwide, among people specifically looking at listings outside their own metro area, the share of traffic going to suburban listings shrank from 62.8% to 60.7%. And traffic to urban listings in other metro areas picked up most of the suburbs' lost share, growing from 8.6% to 9.9%. Rural areas, which always comprise a disproportionately high share of out-of-metro page views, grew from 28.6% to 29.5%. Even among New Yorkers — who might be imagined to be perusing remote, forested cabin retreats — the share of out-of-town traffic directed at urban listings rose this spring, from 12.1% to 13.0%, similar to the increase in their interest in out-of-metro rural listings (up from 18.4 to 20.0%).
Overall Traffic is Up
All of this is not evidence of a drop-off in interest in moving — it only suggests people may not be interested in moving terribly far from their current homes, or in exchanging their urban locale for a quieter, less-dense suburban neighborhood (at least, not yet). After rebounding in April, overall web traffic to for-sale listings on Zillow has continued to surge beyond year-ago levels so far in May. For the week ending May 10, overall traffic was up 42% from the comparable week in 2019, suggesting a wave of pent-up demand from home buyers stymied by the pandemic so far this spring. Traffic to listings in all kinds of neighborhoods is up this spring: Listings in urban areas got 23% more traffic this April than last; rural listings got a 19% year-over-year boost and views to suburban listings were up 12% from a year ago.
Methodology
All page view events of for-sale homes on Zillow.com and the Zillow app are tabulated for April 2020 and 2019; the listing's ZIP code and user's city, which are then aggregated to origin/destination MSA and our proprietary urban/suburban/rural classification. That division is based on survey results where respondents were asked to describe their home area as urban, suburban, or rural, and then extrapolated to all ZIP codes by comparing population density. Page views exclude real estate agents and other professional users on Zillow in order to better measure demand. Year-over-year comparisons are done after offsetting 2019 data by 2 days, in order to compare the same days of the week, e.g. we compare Wednesday, April 1, 2020 with Wednesday, April 3, 2019.
The post Coronavirus Not Yet Driving a Surge in Suburban Home Searches appeared first on Zillow Research.
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