According to Agence France-Presse on January 22, due to extremely low interest rates and the desire for space of “white-collar workers” who work remotely, while the economy is hit by the pandemic, the real estate industry in the United States has been striking.

In 2020, houses and apartments, new or old, were sold like bread. It seemed to be a mockery of history: the sales of existing homes have reached the highest level since 2006. After 2006, the real estate bubble burst, leading to the financial crisis and the 2009 Great Recession.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced on the 22nd local time that a total of 5.64 million homes were sold in the United States in 2020, an increase of 5.6% over 2019.

According to the report, in fact, since the crisis, interest rates have been at a very low level and were not expected to rise soon.

In the United States, many employees never returned to the office, not to mention many schools were still closed. Even when the COVID-19 pandemic was under control, they would have to continue telecommuting at least part of the week. As they no longer needed to be crowded in small apartments in the city center, many families choosed to buy a house with a garden farther away as their primary or secondary residence. In addition, the price of used cars rose by 10% last year, the highest increase in the past 40 years.

A statement from NAR quoted its chief economist Lawrence Yun to emphasized that this real estate boom would not end in 2021, and “new buyers are expected in the market”.

The report pointed out that the revival of the real estate industry pushed up the prices of old houses last month, up 12.9% compared to December in 2019. The demand was so great that nearly three-quarters (70%) of properties were sold in less than a month, with an average sale time of 21 days, compared with 41 days a year ago.