I sat down the other day coming to the realization why your home is so very important, especially today. What we all have experienced and gone through over the last months has rocked our economy as well as our mental stability.
Yes, we all know how home prices surprisingly had escalated during the pandemic and continue to increase, as everyone came out to the suburbs, escaping the higher infection rates in the cities.
Obviously, many bidding wars have occurred and will continue to occur as long as demand is very high as more people don’t just want a home but feel they have to have it. Thus the need has been so strong.
The overpricing for a percentage of homes has been almost irrelevant with the lack of inventory to choose from, triggering multiple offers and bidding wars.
One of the major reasons is that 80 million people began working at home full time and the need for private space became tantamount in being able to focus and concentrate on one’s job or business without outside disturbances, especially while kids were also sequestered at home.
Most importantly, the children also needed their own space to be able to pay attention to learning via their PCs and laptops during their school classes online.
I am sure that this was very challenging with children not being around their peers as they had been used to. Zoom as well as other online services enabled adults and children to do what they needed to day-to-day to stay connected and focused.
Even outside space has become a stress reliever for many who were used to the city hustle and bustle and noise with nowhere to escape, unless you were one of the few with very expensive apartments or town homes with a terrace or rear yard.
The mental anguish that has been created by the pandemic also exacerbated and pushed many more families and individuals in deciding to seek safer refuge and quieter surroundings that the suburbs and other states have provided. Mental healthcare professionals have had a very busy year dealing with the issues caused by the pandemic among adults and children. I read an article from U.S. News and World Report from April 5, 2012, by Philip Moeller that puts an accurate perspective on the value of one’s home and its effect on health. Here is an excerpt from the article https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012/04/05/why-our-homes-make-us-happy:
“The human animal is not so different from his ancestors. Just as animals have lairs and mark their territories, people have fundamental attachments to place and space. Even equating home and the womb is not too far a stretch. Humans, however, add layers of significance to home and place. Physical places endure while memories and people fade, so homes and neighborhoods become ‘memory machines’ that help us keep alive some of the strongest sources of what has given our lives meaning, well-being, and happiness.”
Rick Scheidt has spent much of his professional life talking with aging residents of the vanishing small towns that dot the prairies in Kansas and other Midwestern states. Here, the sense of place is very powerful. Often, it is all that is left.
“We call it autobiographical insideness,” he says. “People look at aspects of their environment in a very personal way. I might be talking to older women about her memories of a place, and I’d say, ‘Look at that cedar tree over there. It looks like it’s been through hard times and gotten hit by lightning.’ And she’ll look at that tree and say, ‘Oh, that’s third base,’ drawing on memories of when she played baseball there as a child.”
Here are the top 10 places as per Forbes Magazine (in alphabetical order only) to be best positioned in recovering after the pandemic today are as followings:
Boise, Idaho
Denver, Colorado
Durham, North Carolina
Madison, Wisconsin
Provo, Utah
Raleigh, North Carolina
Salt Lake City, Utah
San Jose, California
Tucson, Arizona
Washington, D.C.
How many of those who have moved out of New York City and other cities will stay planted in their current homes and not consider moving back to the urban city environment is unknown at this point.
Philip A. Raices is the owner/Broker of Turn Key Real Estate at 3 Grace Ave Suite 180 in Great Neck. He has 39 years of experience in the Real Estate industry and has earned designations as a Graduate of the Realtor Institute (G.R.I.) and also as a Certified International Property Specialist (C.I.P.S). For a “FREE” 15 minute consultation, a value analysis of your home, or to answer any of your questions or concerns he can be reached by cell: (516) 647-4289 or by email: Phil@TurnKeyRealEstate.Com
