Covid-19 has disrupted lives, torn up the economy and showed the horrible rift between rich and poor.

It’s also disrupted Americans’ love affair with cities. Where places like New York and San Francisco once offered social benefits like theater, dining out and partying—enough vibrancy to induce people to pay higher prices and taxes—some say those benefits have evaporated.

And that’s prompted a number of people to flee to the suburbs or exurbs. How serious this flight is depends on where you’re looking. While the median housing price in downtown Manhattan has fallen 4.8% year over year, Sullivan County in upstate New York has seen home prices jump 9.4% over the past year, according to Zillow, while Ulster County’s home prices have risen 5.9%. Houses in Ulster, Sullivan and Westchester counties have reportedly been flying off the market in a matter of days, selling above their list prices. South Lake Tahoe, meanwhile, has become a red-hot market for people fleeing San Francisco, and Zillow says home prices there have risen 4.2% this year.

That said, Zillow Research’s “Urban-Suburban Market Report” in August found that despite Manhattan and San Francisco list prices dropping and inventory rising, “this divergence of active inventory is not evident in cities like Miami; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and Seattle.”

But financial advisors across the country are indeed encountering clients thinking of picking up and leaving. After all, if clients can work from home now, why not live farther away from the office and be closer to their families or, perhaps, live in a large house with more space? A lot of them are thinking, “Why not work in the same place I like to go on vacation?”

And that’s led them to ask their advisors whether moving is a good idea.

Charles B. Sachs, the director of planning at Kaufman Rossin in Miami, says his firm is working through this issue with some clients. “With financing rates at all-time lows,” says Sachs, “coupled with many wanting larger homes as a result of Covid, there has been a renewed interest in just how much home one can afford. And while lenders use one set of criteria … to qualify people’s ability to pay the loan, what is missing in my opinion is all the additional carrying costs associated with larger space.”

This might stress a fragile retirement plan, he says.

Ron Guay, an advisor at Rivermark Wealth Management in Sunnyvale, Calif., says he’s also seen an increase in the number of clients asking about relocating, specifically out of New York and the Bay Area.

A relocation poses two immediate risks, he says.

One is “potentially solving a short-term problem, escaping urban life during a pandemic, with what is typically a long-term decision—buying a home,” he says. Two is “the risk of buying into a market during a bubble. Lake Tahoe has become a very hot housing market due to people leaving the Bay Area during Covid. What happens one to two years later when we’re hopefully past the pandemic, the housing market returns to more normal levels, you and your family are ready to leave ‘the great outdoors,’ and you have to choose between selling a home that is underwater or hiring a property manager and renting it out for less than your monthly cost of ownership?”

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