I had a friend who was trying to buy a house in Southern CT this summer during the peak NYC exodus of lock downs and riots. Houses were selling withing hours based on pictures alone, without any of the traditional inspections, etc. Just I’ll take it, here’s my offer of 20k over ask.
Even had people competing for apartments. They my say rent is $1,000/month and someone would offer 1,300/month.
Most of these people are never moving back. NYC landlords will soon have thousands of apartments with no one to rent them, stores and restaurants with fewer people to shop, etc.
We left in March. Came up here Mar 14th to look at vacation homes having just sold our home in Miami. Based on the news from NYC we decided to buy immediately and stay here. God was somehow in charge of the timing and we found the home of our dreams which went on the market that same weekend. I’ll never go back and I’m now looking for a cabin on the other side of the notch or in northern Maine.
The hell of it is that those landlords can't lower the rent to attract renters without having to shell out hundreds of thousands to their financiers. Property values in New York are estimated based on rental rates. If a rate goes down the property value goes down and the owner has to immediately pay down the balance of his mortgage in order to maintain the collateral to loan balance ratio.
While I agree many of these jobs are never returning to NYC, I also wonder how many will remain in this area (either remotely or setting up in cheaper alternatives nearby). This ChiCom virus has allowed companies to shed some jobs with public relations cover (due to economic conditions vs. corporate greed), and people should always remember that many jobs that can be done remotely can be done from Asia the same way. I’d already noticed a migration of back-office accounting work and such to India, and I assume those projects will be accelerated.
Here in northeastern NJ we are seeing a rise in housing prices and rents, but I don’t assume it will last; it didn’t last with previous events (such as the flight of wealth from NYC to northeastern NJ/Rockland and Orange counties in NY during the Dinkins administration). We seem to be the temporary fix until a better solution is found, because it is expensive here as well - just not as dominated by the lunatic left or the race war.