Business View Civil and Municipal | April/May 2022

6 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3 Redfin offers facing competition, leading to a big portion of homes being sold over asking price. In Austin and Phoenix in particular, another reason for skyrocketing prices is the flood of Americans moving in from other parts of the country, especially expensive tech hubs like the Bay Area and Seattle. Thanks to the pandemic-fueled rise in remote work, the number of Redfin.com users looking to move into both Austin and Phoenix from out of town roughly doubled from 2019 to 2021. Those migrants are a big contributor to rising home prices, as their homebuying budgets are significantly bigger. “Homes that were selling for $350,000 before the pandemic are going for closer to $500,000,” said Austin Redfin agent Crystal Lopez. “My advice to buyers: If you see what seems like a reasonable price, buy it. The value will likely go up. If people wish they would have bought in Austin a year ago, next year they’re going to be wishing they would have bought now.” Corvettes in Texas and minivans in Massachusetts Redfin also compared home-price increases to car prices in other select metro areas: • Raleigh, NC: The cost of the typical home increased by $87,500 last year to $400,000. The increase is roughly the cost of a Lexus LX SUV ($88,245). • Dallas, TX: The cost of the typical home increased by $65,000 to $380,000. That price increase could buy a Chevy Corvette for $62,195. • Boston, MA: The cost of the typical home increased by $38,000 to $595,000. The increase is enough to buy a Honda Odyssey for $34,265, with thousands left over to buy top-of-the-line car seats for the new minivan. • Buffalo, NY: The cost of the typical home increased by $25,000 to $200,000. The increase could almost buy a Nissan Rogue SUV for $28,075. • Oklahoma City, OK: The cost of the typical home increased by $17,750 to $224,000. The increase is big enough to buy a Kia Rio for $17,275. • Detroit, MI: The cost of the typical home increased by $8,300 to $163,000. Motor City’s price increase is big enough to buy a Honda XR650L motorcycle for $7,000. To read the full report, including methodology and a table showing home-price increases for several U.S. metro areas, please visit: https://www.redfin. com/news/2021-home-price-increases-compared- with-cars Homebuyers, motivated to move by record-low mortgage rates and remote work, bid against each other for the limited supply of homes for sale