Around this time last year, the COVID-19 pandemic had caused record-breaking unemployment numbers. But amid all that economic turmoil, remote work and low interest rates are continuing to fuel a housing boom.
“This is one of the hottest spring selling seasons we’ve ever seen in the U.S. housing market,” Senior Economist at Zillow, Jeff Tucker said.
It’s particularly intense, he said, in counties like Riverside and San Bernardino, where homes tend to be more affordable, especially for first-time home buyers.
“First-time homebuyers really struggle to afford anything in Los Angeles itself,” Tucker said. “So, they tend to look inland. And that’s where it’s still relatively feasible to find a family size home at an affordable price.”
These trends in the Inland Empire are part of a nationwide trend of “extraordinarily hot” housing markets in the inland west, from Spokane, Washington and Boise, Idaho to Las Vegas and Arizona, in addition to the Riverside and San Bernardino areas, Tucker said.
