Digital Nomads and Ghost Towns: How Remote Work Is Changing Real Estate Winners and Losers
The explosion of remote work has upended the American real estate landscape, driving a record increase in home values and reshaping communities across the nation. As millions of workers gained the freedom to work from anywhere over the course of and after the pandemic, their movement has breathed new life into forgotten communities while leaving others withering with cratering population and property values. The geographic reshuffling of human capital is one of the most important real estate trends of the modern age, and it is producing clear winners and losers in markets that once seemed immune to sudden reversals.
Small Towns Experiencing Renaissance
Long-overlooked rural areas and small cities with natural beauty, affordable housing and reliable internet are enjoying a renaissance, with Americans from Brooklyn to San Francisco fed up with their congested, dirty beaches (and lack of them where there used to be some.) Property values have soared in places like Bozeman, Mont.; the Austin, Texas, suburbs; and mountain towns in Colorado as digital nomads are fleeing the city for quality of life, affordability and Instagram-worthy vistas — all while trying to keep their city salaries.
Urban Exodus Creates Opportunities
Large cities like New York and other expensive coastal areas have been losing population as remote workers seek cheaper markets in which to live. This new surge in demand has opened up opportunities for holdouts to get into properties previously beyond reach of available budgets, even as in some urban markets it has depressed rental rates.
Infrastructure Becomes King
Towns and cities with strong broadband internet, co-working spaces and good health care are flourishing, while those without digital infrastructure are falling further behind. Rural communities that invested in fiber optic networks long before the remote work surge are now reaping large rewards, with growing demand for living and working space.
See also: How to Prepare for Real Estate Market Changes
The Losers: Rust Belt Troubled Spots
Some old industrial cities and depressed areas have reaped no benefits from the migration to remote work. The area isn’t desirable for remote workers who have the money to live anywhere, their conclusion by the way has been massive population loss and dead-on-arrival home values, it sucks.
Seasonal Market Volatility
Extreme changes in the seasons are felt in many remote working locations as digital nomads shift around. Winter towns enjoy population surges, and summer beach towns get fat with new residents, resulting in complicated rental markets, pricing challenges and displacement for those who have lived there long enough to be able to take their neighborhoods for granted.
Investment Implications
Wise property investors are already spotting some of these burgeoning remote work hot spots before they tip and getting in early in desirable areas with good fundamentals like natural beauty, improving infrastructure and a good cost of living ratio compared with major cities. If positioned right, these changes open exciting investment options — especially in towns that combine charm with convenience, and scalable rental demand.
Some projects are also tapping into the love for flexibility and luxe with branded residential developments like intercon, which cater to the globe-trotting remote workers who want a hotel experience, a central location and the permanency of a place while still maintaining mobility.
Wrapping Up
The remote work revolution has given birth to a new geography of opportunity in real estate. Here the same dynamics that have made the housing supply increasingly path dependent to tech salaries are playing out wherever the desirability of location is more about quality of life than it is to absolutely essential job proximity. Winners in this new landscape are communities that offer a mix of natural beauty, modern infrastructure and reasonable costs, while losers are places that did a poor job of adapting to evolving work patterns or lack the sorts of basic amenities that can entice remote workers. For those looking to invest in real estate, or current property owners, knowing this is one of the most crucial aspects of making informed decisions in an age where “location” is becoming more of a colloquial concept.
