Luxury Housing Market, Vacation Home Interest Snaps Back

Numbers have shown the desire for city living has dropped compared to suburbia life due to the pandemic, but some homebuyers who can afford it are deciding to have a bit of both. In May, luxury home interest and prices shot up, according to Realtor.com. The homebuyers able to afford the shiny, sleek high-rises are seeing benefits in purchasing a home in a vacation spot with more space and less people, especially now. Compared to last year, the median luxury home prices rose 6.1% and general interest, noted in views of listings, jumped 7.3% year over year. 

The middle of a pandemic-induced recession, with millions of people out of work and the future uncertain, does not seem like the best time to drop big bucks on a home. That is, unless you’re a wealthy city dweller and that home is a luxury property with an in-ground pool and plenty of acreage, far from the potentially infected urban hordes.

Interest and prices in the luxury housing market rose sharply in May, according to a recent realtor.com® report. (Realtor.com defines luxury as the top 5% of the most expensive homes in a given market.) And demand in that sector has shifted from sleek, urban high-rises to popular vacation destinations where buyers can score larger, more private residences in less populated areas.

"COVID-19 and the recession have not affected everyone equally," says Javier Vivas, realtor.com's director of economic research. "We're coming off a great economic boom ... and home buyers in the luxury tier have accumulated wealth for these types of purchases. This is not atypical, as high net worth individuals are traditionally less affected by recessionary blips, and some see it as an opportunity to invest or offload cash into real estate."

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