Home prices are going up, but the hot markets pre-Covid continue to be the hottest

Home prices are up pretty much everywhere. But they’re not up evenly everywhere. I made this map of home value changes Dec 2020 – Dec 2021 using Zillow’s Home Value Index. A few observations:

·        This map looks to me like a return to the status quo in relative price growth. The west coast, Florida, and select regions in the south are outpacing price growth seen elsewhere, much like they have been for several years. Arizona in particular is showing explosive growth nearly everywhere.

·        There are also some interesting pockets of high price growth in some exurban and coastal areas around the big cities in the northeast corridor, which could be remnants of the Covid-based exodus out of the denser areas into the suburbs, or they could be continuations of pre-Covid outmigration trends from New York.

·        It’s hard to believe that double-digit price growth in some of these midwestern and rust belt regions are driven by increased demand or latent supply constraints in those locations. Many of these counties are losing population, yet still seeing price growth. So whatever price increases are happening in these areas, much of it is the result of factors outside of that location’s specific attributes. Those types of price gains – gains due to national rather than local trends – are definitely more susceptible to change.