Amid growing economic concerns and a slowdown in housing supply, there is a great opportunity for real estate investment in suburbs and smaller cities.

There is a growing realization that people want to move away from big urban cities and continue their working-from-home arrangements.

A Zillow survey says 75% of those working from home would like to continue to do that after the Covid-19 pandemic subsides. And this work-from-home desire will create an explosion in home value growth.  This presents an excellent opportunity for more affordable housing and growth in the single-family rental market.

The Seattle real estate tech companies that have spent the past several years reporting on how attractive and hot tech hubs like Seattle, Silicon Valley and elsewhere are have shifted gears during the COVID-19 pandemic. The darlings of the latest real estate projections are secondary cities, the exurbs, bigger homes and more space.

Zillow weighed in this week with the results of a survey tied to remote work and how it could affect where Americans want to live, with 75 percent of those working from home saying they would like to continue to do that at least half the time after the health crisis subsides.

That work-from-home desire also leads two-thirds of employees (66 percent) who have that option to say that they are at least somewhat likely to consider moving as a result. It’s a shift from the past decade that has drawn more people closer to urban cores and tech jobs — and spurred an explosion in home value growth and an affordability crisis in places like Seattle.

On the heels of Twitter announcing that some employees will be allowed to work from home forever, Bloomberg also reported Thursday on how Silicon Valley tech workers are looking to escape sky-high rents for more affordable options away from San Francisco.

Zillow found that people aren’t just looking to take advantage of the ability to do their job from anywhere, they want to be more comfortable while doing it. Of those surveyed with WFH as an option, 31 percent would consider moving in order to live in a home with a dedicated office space, to live in a larger home (30 percent), and to live in a home with more rooms (29 percent).

“Moving away from the central core has traditionally offered affordability at the cost of your time and gas money. Relaxing those costs by working remotely could mean more households choose those larger homes farther out, easing price pressure on urban and inner suburban areas,” Zillow senior principal economist Skylar Olsen said.

The trade-off is moving away from a wider variety of restaurants, shops, and urban amenities. Olsen said “we’re not talking about the rise of the rural homesteader on a large scale,” but rather a remote workforce that still favors suburban communities or secondary cities that have many of the amenities plus the bigger homes.

For those who work from home some of the time and still make a trip into the office, breaking up the routine can change what they’re willing to put up with when it comes to a commute.

Previous Zillow research found renters, buyers and sellers overwhelmingly agreed that the longest one-way commute they’d be willing to accept when considering a new home or job was 30 minutes. The new survey  showed 50 percent who would be open to a commute that was up to 45 minutes or longer.

What does this mean for the TEMECULA VALLEY REGION?

Homes in Temecula, Murrieta and surrounding cities have been an incredible bargain – typically half to two-thirds the price of comparable Orange County, Los Angeles and San Diego homes – and the main reason for that is that these are “COMMUTER COMMUNITIES.”  Many homeowners in the area either drive North and West to the OC and IE, or drive South to San Diego County, which often means 2-3 hours of each work day spent on the road.  If a sizable number of people are now able to work from home, imagine how many folks will flee the extremely high and inflated prices of Orange County, Los Angeles and San Diego for the affordability of Temecula, Murrieta, Lake Elsinore, Wildomar, Lake Elsinore, Menifee, Perris and Winchester.

And unlike typical small towns, which have little to offer in the way of entertainment and recreation, the Greater Temecula area offers Old Town Temecula, three dozen top Wineries, Hot Air Balloons, half a dozen large lakes, hundreds of hiking areas and top-rung shopping malls.

Because most of the homes in the area have been built since 2000, most homes here have all the latest trends:  open floorplans, energy-efficient, smart-technology, fiber-optic cable and large size.  It’s not unusual to find 5 and 6 bedroom homes with 3-4 bathrooms, a family room, living room and home office in the $500s.  And places like South Temecula and Canyon Hills are Master-Planned Communities, which make living very convenient.  One can have a backyard facing the mountains but still have shopping within a mile.

And for ANY price range, there are few places that can match this area for raising children.  Master-planned communities have plenty of parks, and the schools are among the highest rated in all of California.  Oh yeah, that’s PUBLIC schools.  For example, Great Oak High School in South Temecula is Top-50 in the USA academically and athletically, with the Cross Country Team dominating the entire State of California and currently #2 in the nation, with Murrieta not far behind.  (You see, the smart teachers move here because they can afford very nice homes on a teacher’s salary.)

In short, the stock market may rise and fall, but it’s hard not to be “Bullish” on the greater Temecula area as a place to live and a place to invest in Real Estate.